A Grain of Mustard Seed

By Shari Strickland

Inspirational read that is a both heart wrenching and humorous true account of a family bound together by their love of god, love of life, and love of family. The author captures feelings that only someone who has experienced the ups and down of caring for an ill parent can express.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 3, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456744557

Shari Strickland

Shari Strickland lives near her childhood hometowns in rural west-central Georgia with her husband, Tony, and Justin, their sixteen-year-old grandson. Sarah and Michael, their other grandchildren, also share their home when they have holidays from school. The household is ruled by their three cats, Hyacinth, Onslow, and Li'l Bit. Shari has worked for thirty years in the OB/Gyn department of the hospital in which she was born. She has authored, developed, and taught educational programs for nurses, including Mother/Baby Cross-training and Level II Neonatal Critical Care. She is also a hospital-based instructor for the American Academy of Pediatrics' Neonatal Resuscitation Program.

Book preview

A GRAIN

OF MUSTARD SEED

Shari Strickland

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AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2011 Shari Strickland. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 3/7/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4567-4452-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-4455-7 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-4454-0 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011902986

Printed in the United States of America

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Later today my older son will be married. As I bustle about getting everything ready for his wedding, I am reminded of my own wedding day and of the story Mama and Daddy told me about theirs. I was probably only nine or ten years old when I asked Mama to tell me how she and Daddy met and fell in love. I was just old enough to believe in fairy- tale princesses and happily-ever-afters. I began to dream that someday I, too, would become the fairy-tale princess with a knight in shining armor on a mission to rescue me from the sadness and worries that already plagued me during those early years.

I had heard bits and pieces of the story during my short lifetime, but when Mama and Daddy told the entire story, many questions were answered as the pieces finally came together.

Mama showed me a picture Daddy had given her when they had first met in 1950 in rural Georgia. The young man in the photo was tall and trim, twenty-three years old with jet black hair. One little wisp of hair was out of place, hanging on his handsome forehead. He was leaning against a 1940s black Ford that belonged to his older brother, Uncle Dan. Behind him were cornfields as far as the eye could see. Behind the car an old oak tree stood rooted as it had been for decades. He was dressed simply in a sport shirt and slacks. Even in the old picture, it was obvious that his clothes were clean but well-worn. Still, his straight white teeth showing through a slightly crooked, mischievous grin and his confident posture as he stood there were undeniably attractive. His name was William Eugene Stribling. Mama never removed that photo from her wallet except to show my brother and me.

Daddy walked into the room as she was showing me the picture of him as a bachelor and telling me their love story. Daddy, who was always quieter and more reserved than Mama at home, was about to walk on through the room when she stopped him. William, she said, this is your story, too. Help me tell Shari how we met.

It turned out that he, too, had a prized picture in his wallet. I could not believe how young and vulnerable my mother looked. In the photograph, she was sixteen, tall, slender but shapely, her black hair cropped into a windblown bob, the style of the day. She was standing in front of her parents’ home in Thomaston, a small town known only for Thomaston Mills, a large company famous nationwide for their manufacture of linens and towels. She was dressed in a man’s shirt—perhaps her father’s or her younger brother’s, I never have known for sure—and a pair of pedal pushers, better known today as clam diggers or cropped pants. Her shirttail was out over her waist and hips but did not hide the fact that she was a knockout. She had a slight smile on her face, but her insecurity and bashfulness were apparent. Her name was Barbara Jean Porter.

Mama and Daddy took turns telling me the rest of the story, often with Daddy looking over at Mama with a flirtatious but incredibly sweet smile on his face. She would then blush and drop her eyes to her hands in her lap.

Back then, she had recently started working at Thomaston Mills in the Bleachery Division after dropping out of school in the tenth grade to make her own way in the world. Her father was a dirty cop; he frequently confiscated illegal alcohol from poor sots he had arrested. Then, his captain turning a blind eye, he would bring the booty home and drink until he could barely walk. In addition, Pawpaw Porter was a mean drunk. While he never physically abused his children, he would mercilessly beat Mama’s mother, Mammaw. Mama, her brother, and her sister watched powerlessly in horror. Mama said that the only time her father ever showed her any affection was later when he was finished with the brutality of her mother and would sit in his big chair, exhausted from his exertion. He would then call Mama over to sit in his lap so that he could hug her. He didn’t molest her, but in her eyes, there was no difference.

Mama’s hope had been to make enough money to afford a place of her own so that she could escape what had been a terribly traumatic childhood and adolescence. She worried about leaving her brother, Gary, who was two years younger than she, and her sister, Ann, who was ten years her junior; however, Gary, now a strapping fourteen-year-old, had promised to protect Ann and himself if the need ever arose and to try to step between Pawpaw and Mammaw when Pawpaw was on the attack.

Mama worked hard. The work was heavy, especially for a teenage girl who weighed barely 120 pounds. She put in long hours and saved every penny she could, but Pawpaw decided that she should start contributing by paying room and board with the extra income in the household. Her meager paycheck barely made that payment. Anything left over went for food.

Daddy had grown up and still lived in Woodbury, a small farming community about twenty-five miles from Thomaston. Daddy told me that he had only a sixth-grade education. I could hardly believe it. His cursive handwriting was beautiful, slanting just enough toward the right, each letter impeccably written. He said that his mother, my Mammaw Stribling, had taught him to write cursive. I also knew that Daddy was wise. He was always telling me things: Anything worth doing is worth doing right. People can steal anything you ever have in this life except your education. Learn everything you can and make the best grades you can in school. I never had the chance, and I don’t want you to ever have to work as hard as I do.

I knew that Daddy was the baby of twelve children, two of whom died in early childhood. I had so many relatives on the Stribling side of the family, but I didn’t know until he told me that as the youngest, he had been taken out of school to help his father run the family farm. His father had been fifty, and his mother had been forty when he was born, so he had never known his parents as young adults the way I had. But he said that years behind a mule and plow on the sixty-three-acre farm with his daddy had made him sturdy, strong, and well-built. From that experience, he knew he would become a suitable husband, one who would not be afraid of hard work and who had strong family values. But he, like Pawpaw Porter, liked his alcohol.

Soon after Mama began working in the mill, Daddy said he noticed her across the large wooden floor. Daddy’s sister, Aunt Mary, worked alongside Mama, and my daddy pestered her to introduce him to that beautiful thing over there. Love notes to Mama were soon being passed down the assembly line at work, each beginning Hey, Good-looking. She was cautioned by fellow workers and even Aunt Mary that he was a heavy drinker and more than a little on the wild side. Aunt Mary said that he liked to party with his buddies after work and on weekends and that he often got into trouble. Those who knew Mama well knew that she was a Christian, and they thought the two of them would never mesh. They advised her to steer clear of him, but it was too late. She was already in love with the handsome young man with the crooked grin.

Daddy said that they were soon engaged, and the wedding was set for December of 1951. They had had long talks about his drinking. He admitted that he drank, but he promised her that he loved her enough to stop drinking if she would only consent to be his wife. She believed him. Daddy said that when he told his mother that he had asked a girl to marry him, his mother, who loved her baby son with all her heart and soul but had lived for years with his drinking and wild escapades, had mixed emotions. Her heart had been broken by Daddy so many times that she just shook her head sadly and replied, God pity the girl who gets you.

The night before the wedding, however, Daddy showed up at Mammaw and Pawpaw Porter’s house … drunk. Mama was heartbroken but thought it was too late to call off the wedding. Everything was set for 1:00 PM the next afternoon. She cried and said, You promised to stop drinking.

He said, That was the last time. I promise.

Again, she believed him.

They married the next day as planned. True to his word, he never drank again. He was twenty-four, and she was seventeen. Together as newlyweds, they weathered Daddy’s DTs. But they were in love, and their love was one that would withstand the hardest of times and the happiest of times and never waver.

They were to become my parents. This is our story.

CHAPTER ONE

A BROTHER FOR ME

Prayers and wishes were similar, except that prayers required some measure of faith. I was raised by God-fearing and God-loving parents who taught me the value of the Bible, church, and prayer. Therefore, I always prayed. But wishing, I found, was automatically a part of all of us.

My mommy was beautiful, with long black hair, and she always wore pretty dresses, even when she cleaned the house. Sometimes she would let me help her cook whenever I wasn’t busy watching Flicka or Lassie. She always wanted to look her best for Daddy, so she would take her apron off just before he came in from work. Daddy would come home after Lassie ended and would greet Mama with a kiss and then hold and comfort me, because I was always upset that Lassie had almost died again that day. After Daddy held me for a while, we would eat while I put in my order for a baby. Even though I was young, I often saw other children with little babies in their mommies’ laps at Sunday school, and I wished for one, too. I had no idea how life would change forever if my wish came true.

Soon, my mommy became very sick. This was the first time I remembered praying in earnest. I prayed fervently and with an extreme trust that only a child could feel. The year was 1956. I was excited, because my mommy and daddy had told me that I would soon have a little baby brother or sister, but I could not understand why my mommy was now sick instead of happy. I knew she didn’t want to be sick, but there she was, kneeling in our small bathroom, vomiting yet again. I eventually came to realize that morning sickness was almost a foregone conclusion when a mother was carrying a little brother or sister, but at the time, I just wanted my mommy to not be sick anymore. At first it was only my wish, but then Mommy taught me to pray, telling me that Jesus would hear my prayers if I only trusted in Him. So I prayed, and for thirty-five long years, I prayed the same basic prayer: that my mother would be well. As the years passed, however, and my mother continued to suffer despite my prayers, my faith often faltered, and I began to find it hard to truly trust and believe.

That day, I closed my eyes tightly and said, Jesus, please make my mommy not be sick anymore. As she continued to heave violently, I prayed (or rather demanded with a stomping of my foot), "Jesus, I said make my mommy better! Don’t you hear me?" I suppose that was also my first realization that Jesus does not always grant our every wish or even our every prayer. With the purity of heart and unwavering trust of a little child, however, I did not let that deter me from wishing and praying and trying very hard to believe.

How often I uttered the words I only wish … only to discover that my wishes changed from day to day, even from moment to moment! Perhaps if I had prayed and trusted instead of allowing myself only to wish, my life and the lives of my precious family might have been a little easier.

I only wish that my mommy would be well. At that early age, I only understood that a new baby was growing in mommy’s tummy, and it made her tummy sick every day. Mommy said it was not the baby’s fault and that she would be better in a few weeks, but she was wrong.

V

When Mommy and Daddy married, they moved into a little house in Thomaston.

That was a smart move, because Thomaston had a hospital but Woodbury did not. I was quite glad that my new baby and I weren’t born in the barn.

The pregnancy turned out to be especially difficult. Mommy weighed less when she delivered my baby brother than she had before the pregnancy. The baby was a month early but was tough enough to overcome the low weight and respiratory issues that usually accompany the premature birth of a male newborn. Mommy and the baby stayed in the hospital for a long time, or so I thought. At three and a half, the wait seemed as if it were forever.

I missed my mommy and daddy, and I could not wait to see my new baby brother. For the week that Mommy and the baby were in the hospital, I stayed with my mommy’s parents. Mammaw Porter never smiled, but she was not mean. Mammaw went to a Pentecostal church, so she didn’t cut her hair or wear pants or even pedal pushers like Mommy sometimes did when she felt like playing on the floor with me. Mammaw wore her hair in a big pile on the back of her head and little pieces of hair were always falling in her face. I could never tell what color her eyes were. They just always looked dark and sad.

Pawpaw Porter worked long hours as a police officer, so I didn’t see him much while I was staying with them. I was too young to know that he was not kind to Mammaw. I thought he looked like a hero. Pawpaw, who Mommy told me had a Cherokee Indian chief as an ancestor, was tall just like my daddy, but with a ruddy complexion and thick dark hair that he combed straight back so that it didn’t show under his policeman’s hat. He was so handsome in his uniform, and he even had a gun. He would let me see it, but I could never touch it. When he came home from work, he hid his gun someplace where no one could find it. I never knew what ancestry was in Mammaw Porter’s background.

Their house was much larger than ours; however, it was a sad house, and I did not like being there. Mammaw and Pawpaw did not talk much to one another or to me. Uncle Gary was in high school then, and he didn’t seem to have time for much other than his friends and homework. Aunt Ann, who was eight, would not let me play with her dolls. I had none of my dolls with me and there was nothing for me to do. My other uncle was just a baby, eighteen months younger than I and he was just aggravating. No one seemed happy that I was there. I waited anxiously for my mommy and daddy to come back and take me home with them.

I knew that Mommy would have to stay at Mammaw Porter’s house for a few days after she got out of the hospital with the new baby, and I felt sad for her. I thought she and the baby should be home with Daddy and me in a happy house.

Daddy always made us happy. He would come home in his khaki work pants and work shirt, often with grease on the front of his clothes, change into something clean, and after supper, pull me onto his long lap and press my head against his shoulder and tell me stories about what he called the old days. That was when he was a boy, working with his daddy on the farm. He told me about his dog rounding up the cows for milking and his mule that pulled the plow. He would laugh and his blue-gray eyes would shine as he told me stories about working with the black field hands and how they always said, Yes, sir, Mr. William even when he was younger than they were. He explained to me that times were changing and that I should remember as I grew up to always be respectful to everyone, no matter who they were or how old or young. He told me about his daddy, John Stribling, who died on the eve of my first birthday. As he talked in slow, even tones, I reached my little hand up to brush at that little stray bit of hair hanging out of place on his forehead. Pawpaw Porter may have looked like a hero, but my daddy really was one.

While he was telling me all these tales of the past, he was usually rocking me gently in the old,