Whistling Past the Graveyard

by Susan Crandall

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.”

“You hear me, child. 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.” She looked at me hard. “Don’t you go forgettin’ that.” She patted my shoulder and left me alone. As I fell asleep, it come to me that that was the first time anybody had ever told me I was a blessing.

“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.”

Right then I got a little sick feeling in my belly. She had been a momma . . . but had to leave to get famous. Do you have to choose one or the other?

’Sides,” she said, still smiling, “love don’t need to be in the same house. There always be love inside me for you and James, no matter where we are.” She buttoned the last button and turned me around. She smoothed my hair down. “There now. You look real nice. Best not keep Miss Cyrena waitin’.”

My daddy always said being brave wasn’t not being scared. Being brave was keeping going when you were. Somehow, Eula always found a way to get on.

“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.”

“That ain’t the point, the scaredness. The point is you find a way around it. You’re plenty strong. Look at all that happened to you, and here you are, still takin’ care of me and James. You could have stayed with Miss Cyrena forever. But you didn’t.” I touched her cheek. “You’re strong, too.”

Maybe she always that way, maybe life hammered her into it. I can’t say. But what I do know is you and me, we been through some things together. Hard things. And I ain’t never seen you act selfish. You fight for what’s right. There’s nothin’ to be ashamed in that. You take care of James and me when we need it, even when it’d be easier to just leave us. I see that you a beautiful person inside—most beautiful I ever met.”

I’d just closed my eyes when Eula whispered, “I feel bad for your momma.” My eyes sprung back open. “Why? She’s so awful.” “ ’Cause she’ll never know what she missin’ in not knowin’ you.”

“I do. I understand real clear. A body can’t run from what they done. They carry it with them inside. It fester and spread like poison if it’s buried. It gotta be out in the air where it can heal.” She opened her palms to the sky. “Someday you understand that, too.” She locked her eyes on mine. “I hope someday real soon.” The look she gave me threw water on the hot coals burnin’ inside me.

“It ain’t my place to speak out,” Eula said, and she turned to the counter again. “Well, I sure as hell can’t ask my mother! I had no idea she was so . . . rough. She was never that way with me.” Daddy swiped his free hand across his face. “Starla respects you, your kindness. You must be doing something right. Help me. Please.”

“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.”

“I’m sorry if I ever made you feel otherwise. I just . . . I thought you’d be better living with Mamie because you’re a girl and I wasn’t sure I knew how to raise you right.” He stopped and looked out the windshield for a second. “And maybe I wasn’t as grown-up as I should have been. But I am now. It’s you and me, kid, from here on.” He reached out and touched my black hair. “You’re my girl. I’d be lost without you.”

“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. I tell you now, I wouldn’t change one choice I made since I met you. No matter what.”

I followed along, feeling like the wind was blowin’ two different directions in my soul.

“You are too brave!” I stopped for a second, not sure why I was all stirred up. “Maybe not in the marchin’-in-the-street way. But that’s okay.” It come clear to me then. Some of them college students had been white. “You don’t have to fight anymore. I’m gonna do the fightin’ for you.”

I think that was the last piece of the good I was supposed to learn from my running away. I wasn’t never gonna run off again, no matter how bad things got. 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.