When I was very little, my mother had a secret life. She wasn’t home when I got up Saturday mornings, although she was always home with lunch on the table by noon. When I was seven or eight, she began to include me in that life.
She was a member of the Samaritan Fellowship, people belonging to the various religious congregations in our town who were dedicated to identifying and helping people and families who had fallen through the nets of family or faith or government services.
Most members were women my mother’s or grandmother’s age, but Mr. and Mrs. Y. were an elderly couple of retired college professors who lived near my grandmother and walked around the block every evening holding hands.
Mrs. S. belonged to a different church than we did, and I enjoyed visits to her neighborhood, which was a car-drive away from ours. She was a widow, a bit older than my mother, I thought, and her kitchen always smelled heavenly. She often made meals for people who were ill or injured, and sometimes I was allowed to carry a casserole dish to the car. She told me her name was Alice, and Miss Alice she remained.
My grandfather, my mother’s father, had died when she was a teenager. The first death I knew was her aunt, his sister. Aunt Bea had made flotillas of paper boats for me in her claw-foot tub, helped me borrow books from the town library, a convenient walk from her home, and taught me about gardening.
I was seven when my grandmother appeared while I was home for lunch and listened to me practice the piano while my mother closed the door to the dining room and made calls. (One was to my teacher, telling her that my great-aunt had died and could she keep it a secret until my mother fetched me at the end of the day).
The day of the funeral was shocking. It was the first time I ever saw an adult cry. I was kept from the room until the coffin had been closed, and I was upset I couldn’t say goodbye to Aunt Bea. I had to assume she was in the lovely wooden box.
When we got home, Miss Alice was in our kitchen. It smelled wonderful, with light scents of herbs and spices we rarely used. She was making miniature sandwiches where the bread had the crust removed (the first time I saw canapés) and her hand came very close to mine when she told me not to touch. She wore a black dress with a white apron. It was the first time I had ever seen someone in a serving outfit and it looked quite fancy, although it was simply made.
I was suddenly aware that Miss Alice’s skin was as smooth and beautiful as always, but it was black, and she was wearing a uniform. I suspect my jaw dropped. I had no idea how to look or what to do. It was the late 1960s and Miss Alice was in our house dressed as a maid. (She had offered her catering and service to my mother so that she didn’t feel the need to do it herself. I had no idea until later how many levels of love and respect were between Miss Alice and my mother.)
I still don’t remember how that spell of embarrassment was broken, but I thank Alice from half a century later that she was calm, dignified, and made me aware she was catering the reception as a gift of love to my mother. Then she told me that if I were very careful, I could help her. I was very careful, and I not only helped arrange trays, I was allowed to carry one to the adults and ask them if they would like anything.
I am not sure why Miss Alice’s kindness sticks with me so profoundly so many years later. In part, it was sheer relief that she saved me from the horror of recognizing and not knowing how to respond to social racism. In part, it was because she showed me the magnitude of even simple gifts when done in the right spirit.
Miss Alice and my mother’s friends, as well as the woman I saw my mother become when she served poor, addicted, or mentally ill people in their homes on a weekly basis, taught me that we should never be too proud to serve. We should be proud we can serve.
That is what love is, what leadership is, and that is the only thing that will make our world, whether it is one neighborhood, one small town, or the breadth of the Earth, a better place.
Elizabeth Coolidge-Stolz, MD/ (c) healingwoman.net