Wednesday, January 23, 2002
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Wednesday, January 23, 2002 |
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Seeing ourselves as others see us By SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE
Company's coming, and I'm in my usual snit, frantic to make the house spic and span. Why is it I can go for weeks and never notice the cobwebs' sticky gray tissues on the stairway windows? The dropped ficus leaves on the tile. Dull woodwork in need of a swipe of furniture polish. Spots on the carpet and overflowing recyclables. Until now. Until I begin to see my house through Jack's eyes. She's never been here, of course, but suddenly I see my careless housekeeping through her eyes. She's coming Monday. We were close friends, roommates, actually, at Gettysburg College. I was playing the piano in the student union one evening, and a bunch of kids gathered to sing Christmas carols. Suddenly, behind me, one voice stood out in the pure clarity of a lark. I couldn't turn to see where it was coming from, but afterward, when I asked a friend who it was, I met Jackie Jury. She was a waif-like beauty with a wistfulness about her, and smooth jet-black hair betraying her American Indian heritage. Cherokee, I think. We became close friends, this exquisite songbird and I. She was a member of the college choir, and as I recall she also earned spending money singing for events and in night clubs. When she needed an accompanist, I was honored to work with her. I took care of her during a serious bout with flu, and the first thing she mentioned when we were reunited after 30 years absence was that the milk-toast I fixed her had saved her life. It wasn't quite that dramatic, but hey, if she wants to call me a lifesaver, why should I object? Jack had been on track to enter the deaconate, a sort of Lutheran sisterhood back in those days, but fell for a pre-ministerial student. They married while Chuck was still in seminary. I'll never forget visiting them in a rented farmhouse on the Gettysburg battlefield. Above the kitchen stove, plaster covered a huge bulge in the wall. The story was that a cannonball was lodged therein, and it was considered safer not to move it. Never occurred to me to doubt it then, but do you really think it was safe just inches above a gas stove? In 1956, Jack sang "Ich liebe dich" and "The Lord's Prayer" for our wedding. Chuck was one of Dave's groomsmen. They took a parish in South Jersey not far from where we lived while Dave helped start up a new plant. Their two children were born about the time ours came along, but eventually they took a call farther away and we lost touch. It was harder to stay connected in those days before e-mail. But I heard that the marriage unraveled while Chuck was the Lutheran chaplain at Brown University in the turbulent '60s. Then about 10 years ago, I saw her name Jury, again in a church magazine. She was back at Gettysburg. She and Martin Sheen, I believe it was, were engaged in a Catholic ministry to migrant workers in Adams County's overflowing apple orchards. Could it really be my Jackie? I called information in southern Pennsylvania, and got a number, and in two syllables "Hello?" I knew I had found her. "Jack! It's Sallie." "I would have known it was you without your telling me," she exclaimed. "You're the only person in the entire world who calls me 'Jack.'" She lives near her daughter in South Jersey, and is now enthralled with the mysticism of the Orthodox church. When we are up in the Northeast, we make it a point to see her. What a shock, the first time: Her raven hair is pure white. A lifetime of pouring herself out for others has left her with few resources for herself financially, emotionally and physically. It didn't help that she contracted Lyme disease, and has suffered severe depression in recent years. Depression is treatable, but she wouldn't stay with it. We saw her last Thanksgiving, and she was so sad, I despaired of her ever knowing happiness again. When we parted, I reissued my usual invitation to come spend some time with us. But I was sure she wouldn't. Then just after New Year's, I was stunned to get a phone call. "I'm coming to see you. I'm going down to Charlie's [her son, with NASA] and I want to stop and visit for a few days." "Jack, you sound different." "I am. I'm happy again. This new doctor gave me some medicine and I feel great. No, really, it was seeing you and Dave at Thanksgiving," and her laughter was music. Oh dear. Her tiny, simple apartment is like a monastic cell; our house, modest by Peachtree City standards, suddenly seems ostentatious. How will she see my materialistic world? Cobwebs and unruly kitchen cabinets are the least of my worries now.
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