Old Stone Church

Today was Heritage Sunday, the one day a year we gather at Old Stone Church rather than our own carpeted, lighted, air-conditioned church. I love to sit in the pew and look up out of the front window. Out of any other window you're bound to see power lines, billboards, stoplights or cars, but through this one you can see only the trees. You can sit and imagine you didn't just take a hot shower, blow-dry your hair, eat a pop-tart and pull up in front of the church in an Odyssey. All the light in the church comes through the wavy glass of the windows from outside.

We missed Heritage Sunday last year because I was nine months pregnant and there's no bathroom at Old Stone Church. I would've been maneuvering my watermelon belly into a porter potty every half hour, and I make it a point never to use porter potties if I can help it. This year Suzi enjoyed a beautiful Sunday with us.

(Uh... A little too close, Jordy.)

She slept like an angel in her Moby Wrap (turns out this was a wise investment, indeed). Her sweet, sweaty little forehead and her breath on my neck made this one of those moments I wanted pictures of so I can remember it in a few years when she'll likely be slamming doors and telling me she wants a new mommy. She woke up just as the choir broke into singing one of the old-fashioned country hymns we always use at this service. Her daddy took her outside to play with Aiden, who was out there with his daddy. Everyone brought food to share at a picnic lunch in the sunshine, but Suzi decided she'd rather sample some sticks and leaves instead. After lunch we took a walk in the cemetery where several historical gravesites can be found, such as that of Andrew Pickens and his family.

I am most intrigued by this one, which I am told belongs to Eliza Huger; a deep crack stretches across the name. I was unable to find any solid info on this obscure subject online, but the story (as it was told to me a few years ago) is that she was a prostitute and her brother walked in on her when she was with a man. He meant to shoot him but accidentally shot her. A grave was made for her away from the others and a wall built around it so she couldn't "corrupt" the souls resting nearby. Attempts were apparently made to plant flowers inside the wall, but nothing but weeds would grow there, and her stone has been struck by lightning more than once.


And now for something completely unrelated...

I just finished reading Alice Sebold's Lucky. (So Mama, it's all yours.) This book is an intricate and, at times, hideous memoir of her rape as a college freshman and its aftermath. It goes worlds beyond Law & Order: SVU and into the mind of the victim. I don't recall ever having learned so much from a book, and I feel I was meant to read it. On May eighth, I went with my parents to Hendersonville so my mom and I could have our outfits made. On the way home we stopped in a nonprofit used book exchange. I hadn't found anything and as my mom was paying for her books, I spotted the title stuffed onto a shelf with a bunch of others, in no particular order. It only cost $1.50, and I was happy to find it after having enjoyed The Lovely Bones. As I read in the backseat on the way home, I realized I had found the book on the anniversary of her rape on May 8, 1981. You should read this; it's a book that won't waste your time.