Good Dirt

by Charmaine Wilkerson

“Most of the trouble in this world boils down to one person not recognizing the worth of another,” Gramps said. “But sometimes, that can be an advantage.”

And a newspaper article on a scholarship awards event sponsored by her grandparents’ foundation mentioned Ebby’s “effortless beauty.” What makes people think anything about her is effortless?

Surely, she is not the only person holding in a world of hurt that pushes against their skin like water against the walls of a dam.

Ebby wanted to be able to confide in her mother, but she didn’t want to burden her any further. So Ebby did what she’d always done. She kept the worst part to herself.

Raw clay was a living thing that could be reshaped and reborn, until the potters committed it to the fire.

It was said the pottery women drew their talents from the spirit world.

She was attractive in a memorable way, which was to say Henry couldn’t stop looking at her.

If you could, indeed, catch Ebby’s eye, strike up a conversation, and show genuine interest in her, if you could be one of those one-in-a-thousand who could look past the hometown tragedy that had burned itself into her family’s identity, or past that reserved exterior, then Ebby would turn her full attention to you. She would be considerate. Ask you questions. Listen to your answers. She would smile. And when she did, it would be like finding the sunny spot in a garden and leaning back in a lawn chair to soak up the light.

Because the problem between Henry and Ebby wasn’t about affection or attraction. It was about the kind of man that Henry had been with Ebby. It was about Henry letting go of Ebby when he should have done whatever it took to hold on to her. Sometimes, when a person comes around, it’s simply too late.

Perhaps the only way to cope with loss, or guilt, is to name it and defy its potential to destroy you. Not run from it, as Ebby has tried to do. Her

Maybe all you can do is give yourself permission to embrace the rest of your life. To play, to love, to risk. To take the beauty that someone brought into your life and share it.

History is a collective phenomenon. It can only be told through a chorus of voices. And that chorus must make room for new voices over time.

But after what she’d heard that day, the dispatcher had to ask to be excused for twenty minutes from her duties. This, too, was professionalism. To understand when you needed to step away.