Whistling Past the Graveyard

by Susan Crandall

Even though I couldn’t understand how it was true—seeing how Jesus loved all his children—Mamie said all coloreds were less than us. I was still learning all of the rules, even though some of them didn’t make a lick of sense to me.

If only dogs could save a person—they don’t care if you’re white or colored.

And right that minute I understood; there was something broke deep inside Eula. Like maybe she hadn’t been able to feel right in her world the same way I never felt right in mine—her without a baby and me without a momma. And I wondered if baby James could fix her.

Whistling past the graveyard. That’s what Daddy called it when you did something to keep your mind off your most worstest fear.

“Why ain’t you mad?” I asked. “Might as well get mad at the wind for blowin’. Some things just be what they be.”

“Sometimes laughin’ is all a body can do, child. It’s laugh or lose your mind.”

It was plain Eula had more faith in the Lord than I did. Which was a wonder; from what I’d seen, she had plenty of reason not to.

I stopped asking about James. But my mind didn’t want to stop thinking about him. It seemed impossible, someone throwin’ away a baby, no matter how dirt-poor they was. Baby James was noisy and a pain in the be-hind, but I wouldn’t just leave him on a church step and not know what was gonna happen to him or who was gonna take care of him.

You can’t use other folks’ bad behavior to excuse your own. When we got a choice, we keep Jesus in our hearts and don’t do nothin’ that would make him ashamed.”

“Now you listen to me. I spent my whole life wantin’ to take care of children. You a blessing, not a burden.”

I wondered, what other gifts I got bottled up inside me? That question had started to gnaw on me some.

“Here’s the thing ’bout gif’s.” Eula stopped buttering her toast and looked straight at me. “A body don’t know how many the good Lord tucked inside them until the time is right. I reckon a person could go a whole life and not know. That why you gotta try lots of things, many as you can . . . experiment.”

Eula had said that because I was white, I could do anything I wanted. I started to feel a little guilty about my skin, even though I couldn’t help the way I was born.

I’d seen her weak, so weak that most people wouldn’t come back from it. But Eula always came back. That was strong. My daddy always said being brave wasn’t not being scared. Being brave was keeping going when you were.

“My daddy says that when you do somethin’ to distract you from your worstest fears, it’s like whistlin’ past the graveyard. You know, making a racket to keep the scaredness and the ghosts away. He says that’s how we get by sometimes. But it’s not weak, like hidin’ . . . it’s strong. It means you’re able to go on.”

“Some of the best things in life come when you’re not planning on them. It’s important to see them for the gift they are.”

“Child, the good Lord got plans for all of us that we don’t know—and he always got his reasons. He want us to learn and rejoice in the good that come from his design.”

“God’s plan ain’t a free pass. Uh-uh. He give us moments to make choices, and we make them. We accountable for those choices. God’s job ain’t to make our lives easier, it’s to make us better souls by the lessons he give us.

“You were just mad at me because I didn’t make the sheriff see she was a person who meant something. And you’re right, Eula deserves more respect. I’m glad you’re learning something it took me years of working with men from all over the country to begin to understand.

I sat there and watched as another news story come on, but my mind was still on those people fighting for civil rights. I hoped they got what they wanted but saved just a little bit of the fight for me.

But I wasn’t gonna be too scared to love the folks that took the time to love me back, and I sure wasn’t gonna chase them that don’t. And I was gonna spend the rest of my life asking questions and looking behind everything that happened, so I could find the gifts I got tucked inside me.