Love Lifted Me: Stories from the Childhood of a Replacement Child

By William C. Noble

As a replacement child, William Noble was born to replace a little boy who died twenty-six years before - just before another pandemic. Born in July 1909, Little William lived for only five years—yet his short life continued to have consequences long after his death for those he knew and for those he was never to know. Now the author, who shares the same birthday with the other William, lives to tell the story.

In a collection of mostly autobiographical short stories covering a timeframe from 1914 through 1958, the writer shares insight into the lives of those who surrounded Little William before and after his untimely death to illustrate the lasting and intergenerational impact of suffering and death, especially when the death is not grieved. As he invites others into his life experiences from birth until age eighteen while living in Vienna, Georgia, the writer shines a light on family dynamics, his personal story, and the diverse characters who influenced his life and views.

Love Lifted Me is a collection of short stories addressing the mysterious origin of identity as located in inheritance, experience, and context.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Mar 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781664293953

William C. Noble

William C. Noble is an Episcopal priest, retired Army chaplain, and practicing psychoanalyst. Love Lifted Me is his first book.

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Copyright © 2023 William C. Noble.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-9396-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-9397-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-9395-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023904066

WestBow Press rev. date: 03/21/2023

Contents

Preface

1 Two Silver Dollars

2 Tippettville Tea

3 Central Park

4 The Western Union

5 First Grade Guilt

6 Chinaberry Lunches

7 The Peach Tree Switch

8 House Plans, Picture Puzzles, and the Ouija Board

9 The Picture Show

10 The Not-So-Free Beer

11 Shredded Wheat

12 Dad and the Power Dam

13 Silence and Color

14 Sin and Suicide

15 Sign and Salvation

Preface

These short stories, mostly autobiographical, are dedicated to Little William, who was born on July 29, 1909, and lived for only five years, but whose short life continued to have consequences long after his death for those he knew and those he was never to know. Some of these stories have appeared in the regional quarterly Georgia Backroads.

Strife closed in the sod is a line from a poem written in 1924 by William Alexander Percy and published as Hymn 661 in The Hymnal 1982 of The Episcopal Church in a section titled The Christian Life. The line may not describe all those whose bodies rest in the city cemetery of Vienna, Georgia, where each grave faces East, but it certainly describes the members of the family into which I was born. The hymn reads:

The peace of God, it is no peace,

but strife closed in the sod.

Let us pray for but one thing,

the marvelous peace of God.

The writings in this collection are offered as a prayer for that peace of God, the marvelous peace which is no peace.

As a childhood friend once said, Forgiveness is the ultimate achievement in the work of grace. Denial impedes grace, the truthful exposure of neglect, abuse, and cruelty, as well as the naming of those who were responsible, must be done before forgiveness and healing are to be achieved. As the Psalmist says, Health and wholeness are found at the joining of truth and righteousness (Psalm 85:10–11). This memoir rests on what I have experienced and what I have been told, on what I have seen or heard.

Each of the stories could stand alone. This collection, from the first eighteen years of my life, is the beginning of what one might call the arc of my life. It goes without saying that the arc is not complete. The mysterious lifting of love and grace comes from the Risen One, who not only is ahead of us but from that position pulls us to Himself. Until He returns, it is a movement to be completed in another world.

If I should ever meet Little William in a life to come, I will ask, What do you think of the way I have lived our life? His evaluation, God’s evaluation, and God’s mercy are important to me now and surely then.

1

Two Silver Dollars

1914

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T he story begins with an end. The story begins with a death.

When Lucy, then a girl of twelve, heard her mother say, Sister, get the silver dollars, she could hardly believe it. She stood as still as the curtains on the screenless window with no breeze to move them, still for a second or two because no one questioned or disobeyed Mama, and no one was allowed to touch the silver dollars except Mama.

Lucy, Sister, get the silver dollars.

Lucy could neither move nor take her eyes off her little brother. He had been sick for a day, coughing through the night. And now he was so still. Little William was not moving. His eyes were open but not blinking. His chest, still covered with last night’s mustard plaster, was bluish. Little William wasn’t breathing. At five, Little William was dead.

Setting aside a child’s fearful fascination with death and the long-standing prohibition against touching the silver dollars, Lucy left the bedroom she shared with her brother and ran to the hall closet. She opened the door, reached to the back of the shelf where the silver dollars were kept in a black leatherette box behind the guest towels, and took it to her mother. Only Mama had held the box of silver dollars before this moment, and only then when she was called on to clean, wash, and clothe a body for burial. In this moment, a community function became a family function.

In rural South Georgia in 1914, the dead