Wedged between the flapping border wings of Ohio and Kentucky lies an old West Virginian town so small I reckon it can be called a village. Good ol’ West Hamlin – nestled so deep in the woods and hollers of the ancient Appalachian Mountains, I bet it’s safe to say more people can list the names of the lost cities in the jungles of American antiquity. Yet somehow I found myself sitting barefoot, wading in the dark current of mountain mist that made the grass glow legendary blue under the stinking hot summer moon.
How in the hell I found myself in such a random place is both a long story and a short one. The simpler version involves three very different ladies from three very different walks of life from three very different areas of the country whom through destiny brought our paths together that summer to teach me some of the most valuable lessons I had to learn in life.
ABIGAIL
My job for the summer was to reach out to some of the poorest people in the United States living in the hills and negotiate agreements to where they would allow me to bring in urban teenagers to work on their homes doing free renovations in exchange for them teaching the teens about their culture and way of life. Many of these homes had no floors or leaking roofs so there was plenty of work to be found.
One of the people I made contact with was Abigail. She was in her early 70s, had chopped silver and black hair, and always wore a well-weathered sun hat covered in sunflowers. Despite not wanting any young “city slickers” to come help her when she was perfectly happy with how she was, we still became immediate kindred spirits with a mirrored sense of humor. Her house was old but not in bad shape. The lead paint on her house was decades old and peeling, but still appeared strong and beautiful – just like Abigail’s face when she laughed.
We would have regular visits on her front porch where she would point out all of the flowers and herbs in her garden from her rocking chair. Sunflowers, basil, daisies, parsley, and even some corn… to name a few. Every day she had a fresh batch of homemade sweet tea ready for me – each infused with an herb from her garden. The chocolate mint was my favorite. One day, she brought me a tea that tasted very strange. She told me it had dandelion in it.
After my second glass, I started feeling very strange – numb like. As my eyes got heavy, I looked at her with concern. She laughed, exposing hidden missing teeth, “Come, Bruno.” She stood up from her rocking chair with great effort, “I want to show you something.” Walking me around the outside of her house to the back, she led me to where her yard met a long spread of thick bushes next to a whispering creek.
“See that?”Abigail pointed at a strange little bush. “That, my friend is your tea of the day.”
Confused..it looked kind of familiar. Kind of. I looked at her, “You put holly in my tea? Isn’t that poisonous?”
Laughing heartily from the gut, her mountain twang stretched like the wire on a rusty steel guitar. “Honey, that there is the Mexican dirt weed.” How could I not still be confused? My face showed it, as well as growing concern. She pounded her hands on her hips, “Mari-ju-wana honey!”
My face flushed with panic and horror at the realization I could, in fact, be high. She grew increasingly tickled and decided it was now a good time to trust me enough to take me inside for some water to sober up… or whatever it is you call getting out of that state of mind. She opened her back door as she explained she sold her harvest to truck drivers passing through the area.
Once inside, I was shocked to find the house was completely barren. No furniture or plants or anything of the sort. No choir, no bed, nothing. When she walked me into what would usually be a living room, original paintings were strewn all over the place. A few hanging on the wall with the majority of them leaning against the walls, ten to twelve deep. Her unpretentious passion for art was unparalleled with anyone I ever knew in my life before or after. She was so poor that she’d rather have a few pieces of beauty in her possession than a car or TV or bed. In the corner was a very large and very old file cabinet where she showed me her collection of homemade greeting cards.
“My biggest and oldest dream,” she told me, “is to be a professional Hallmark Card creator.”
I started laughing inappropriately loud – okay, giggling like a crazy person. This, in effect, made Abigail laugh. But she was laughing because I had been “touched by the holy Mary Jane.”
“You,” I told Abigail, “amaze me greatly. You’re so carefree with your life and you have so little. I hope to have that one day.”
With a chuckle, Abigail smacked me across the arm with a dish towel, “Silly young man. Wanna know my secret? Being carefree is actually, believe or not, free.”
HANNAH
One week near the end of the summer, a group of teens arrived from the ferocious beating heart of Detroit. With them came a wicked sense of humor, style, and survival that those hills of West Virginia had never seen before. And the feeling was very mutual for the youth.
One night while I was leading campfire songs about hiking barefoot and peeing dogs and other such nonsense, I noticed a young lady sitting on the ground, legs stretched out in front of her. She looked uncomfortable but was smiling despite not singing along.
When the evening fun rediculosities were over and everyone was headed to their bunks, I went over to the girl and sat next to her. I made sure she was enjoying herself so far and she assured me she was.
“So,” I asked her while looking forward at the fire, “Why were you sitting over here alone?”
“It’s more comfortable for me sitting like this.” She pats her thighs in front of her. “These bad girls needed to stretch out.”
“Oh, was that because of the long drive?”
“Yes and no.”
“Gotcha,” I said, assuming that was all there was to it. “So, do you not like singing? You were the only one not singing along.”
“No no, I love singing. I use to do it all of the time.” She paused reluctantly, lost in the fire or determining if she should trust telling a stranger her business. “You see, it’s difficult for me, just like my legs.”
“Oh?” Clearly I touched a sore spot and was going to leave it alone. “I’m sorry.”
“You see, I have ALS.”
Pretty certain I should be feeling like an idiot, all I could say was, “Oh!” Uncomfortably, I inquired, “What is ALS?”
“Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.”
“Gesundheit!.” Trying to lighten the mood.
With relief, she chuckled. “Thank you. Most people just feel sorry for me.”
“Nah. I just got back from India not too long ago and if there’s one thing I learned, it’s that you shouldn’t feel sorry for people with disabilities but for the lack of people not willing to understand them.”
“Ha!” She leans to her side to pull something out of her pocket. “Tell me about it.” She hands me a little tract, like a religious conversion instructional. “That’s why I carry these around..shortens my conversations which seem to get on repeat.” It was a red and white glossy tri-folded, red and white pamphlet that read “ALS: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – What you need to know.”
“Clever. I need one of these for premature balding.”
After a few lighthearted cackles, she reached around the tree for her forearm crutches. I stood up quickly and bent down to help her up.
“Stop!” She shouted, glaring at me half way up to her feet. I stood frozen in shock, unsure how to react. “Never help someone with a disability unless they request it.”
As she rose the rest of the way to her feet, I untouched her arms, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.”
“That’s alright. Most people never do.” I started walking her back to the bunks. “Sorry for shouting. It’s just that I worked too hard to learn how to do this for myself.”
“That makes complete sense.”
“It’s just one of those things most take for granted.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“I guarantee you will live longer than me yet you live with greater limits than me.”
“How so?”
“Well, you’ll probably go off to college, get married, have children, get a real job… you know, the works. It’s what you’re expected to do. I’m lucky where I’m only required to live until … well, I don’t.”
After a long minute of silence, I uncomfortably stated the obvious, “You speak as if you’re going to die soon.”
Surrendering with a smile, “Well, ALS will take me sooner than I want. Not sure when. But it sure is a motivator.”
As we walked on to her bunk room in lighter conversation to say our goodnights, unsure if I should be sad or inspired, I nodded my head with the only response that came to mind, “I can only imagine.”
ESTHER
One of the homes we were working on nearly the entire summer was a large white Mennonite farmhouse surrounded by chickens and tobacco fields. I visited the project almost daily as the various groups of teens came in and out through the summer, every week working on a different part from painting and roofing to plumbing.
On an exceptionally hot and humid day when I was stopping by for a visit, I made a beeline for the kitchen for some ice water. As soon as the screen door slammed behind me, I realized it was hotter in the kitchen than the sauna outside. Mrs. Albrecht was covered head to toe in a baby blue dress, almost looking like a night gown, with a large white apron. A white mesh miniature bonnet covered her bun, looking like some turn of the century cafeteria lady. She was baking in her antique iron wood fire stove. Hannah was sitting at the table cutting squares and poking holes into flattened dough on the flour drenched weathered oak table.
“Well fancy meeting you here.”
“Hi Bruno! Take a seat.” I sit across from her and ask if I could have a glass of water. “This is so cool!” She continued, “no one does this in Detroit.”
“And what exactly are you all doing?” Mrs. Albrecht puts a glass of lemonade in front of me. “Thank you.” Of course, that would do just fine as well.
“We are making homemade cheese and crackers.” A look of sheer delight was on her face.
To my right coughed a young lady so silent I forgot she was sitting there. She was unwrapping cheese cloth from an orange brick of cheddar like pealing paraffin wax from smooth skin.
Her skin was pale green and her dirty hair curtained the sides of her face. With wet and audible breath she introduced herself, “Hi, I’m Esther.”
“Hi Esther, I’m Bruno.” She smiles a little at me and went right back to her pealing.
“Esther is my first born,” explained Mrs. Albrecht.
“Oh! I didn’t realize you had other children.” I looked at Esther smiling awaiting a natural response to that comment. Nothing.
Without turning around from the stove, her mother asked her to leave the room. “Esther, can you please go and bring me a clean white dish towel?”
Standing up with a slouch and leaving without a word, she disappears up the stairs.
“Esther is married, Bruno, so she does not live here anymore.”
“She’s seems so young. How long has she been married?”
“Just under a year. She is sixteen. We had to marry her to a wealthy farmer up the holler. We didn’t have the money to take care of her anymore. She was getting too old.”
I drew a cross into the condensation on my glass to hide my shock. “Is she alright? She seems quite ill.”
Her mother sits at the table and starts whispering to me quickly with urgency, “Bruno, you must help. She’s been wanting to leave. Her husband is cruel but he’s been overdosing her with prescription painkillers to keep her too weak to run. I don’t know what to do.”
Hannah and I look at each other in shock. “I…I don’t know what I can do. I…” Esther enters the room and hands her mother the towel and sits back at her place at the table. Mrs. Albrecht stands quickly and turns her back to us, emotionally deflated. I stare out the window and watched Mr. Albrecht hoeing a dry acre with an archaic wooden device being pulled by a mule. His face was hidden under the dark shadow of his black Stetson wide-brimmed hat. I noticed on the window sill a wire basket with one brown egg in it. I thought quickly.
“Mrs. Albrecht, mind if I go gather some eggs for you?” I needed to get away from the tension.
“Sure, Bruno. Here, take the basket.” She hands me the basket as I stand.
“Esther, care to join me for some fresh air?”
Mrs. Albrecht looks at me curiously and then nods permission to Esther. Esther and I walk through the squeaky screen door across the long creaking porch without saying a word. Once we started to cross the dust road to the hen house, I dared to intervene. “Esther, is everything alright? I hear you’re going through some … interesting times.”
“Yes, Bruno,” keeping her head down as she shuffled across the dirt, “my father says I’m doing my godly duty as a good wife. Things are difficult but they are for the greater good.”
How on earth was I to react to that? “Is there anything I can do to help?”
She looks at me nervously and then back at the farm before pulling me into the hen house. Can you get me to New York City? I’ve always wanted to go be in the big city. The silence and church bells are driving me mad.”
“I,” terrified to respond, “let me see what I can do.”
She nodded okay and we picked the eggs without speaking and return them to the kitchen before I left.
A few days later, I was sitting on the floor in the game room at the camp. A group of boys were beatboxing, trying to outdo each other. Hannah was sitting across from me against the wall laughing along as two of the Detroit girls were to braid my thin wavy Scottish hair into cornrows. It hurt so much, I swear they were drawing blood.
The boys tried to teach me to beatbox. As my lips flapped and spit as I sounded like a fart in a garbage disposal, Esther said something to me so softly that I couldn’t understand. I stopped so she could repeat herself. The room was erupting in laughter as I tried to read her lips, “We need to do something. It’s getting bad over there.” I nodded, “yes.”
That night, I asked my boss if I could go work at another work site about 50 miles away for the rest of the summer. We agreed I could leave the next day. Late that afternoon, I got Esther and we drove to the Albrecht farm 20 miles away. We sat in the oversized pickup truck and watched from across the tobacco field as the father was gathering the family in the black horse-drawn buggy for Saturday night services. Everyone got in, except for Esther.
As the father rode the rest of the family down the dark road, Hannah and I drove up behind the house, headlights off. Hannah stood next to the dark side of the house as lookout as I ran inside and carried Esther to the truck. She sat between Hannah and I.
Speeding down the winding roads, Esther said, “I love you Bruno. I hope we marry one day.” Knowing full well she was delirious from the drugs yet 100% genuine, I assured her she will marry a good man one day and that she would know real love one day. Raging with adrenaline, I instructed her to sleep.
We drove up to Abigail’s house on the other side of the hills. Quickly, I explained to Abigail the whole situation, pleaded to hide her and help her escape – giving her all the cash I had to help. Abigail promised to take care of her.
I went over to Esther and pushed her hair back from her face. Unsure if she could understand me, I told her, “You’re free now, friend. Abigail will help you from here on.”
I sped away with Hannah, nervously telling her we must get her back ASAP. Half way back to camp, Hannah put her hand on my steering arm while she was staring out the window, “wait.” I looked over. The rain had stopped and the moon had illuminated a large grass field at the end of a holler, sprinkled lightly with small daisies lit by the bright night sky. “Let’s go there for a moment.”
“We really need to get you back before it gets late, Hannah.”
“I know,” she looked at me, “but please. There’s something I need to do.”
Surrendering to her plea, I pulled off the road into the edge of the field. Hannah gets out of the truck faster than me. When I made my way to the side of the truck, she was finishing pulling her shoes and socks off with her feet, not even bending over. “Come, hurry,” she commanded as she started crutching across the grass.
“Hold on!” I scamper to get barefoot myself. As soon as my feet hit the grass it was the greatest feeling I’d ever felt. I imagined it to walking on water. When I looked up. Hannah had stopped in the middle of the field and was looking up at the sky swimming with stars. I walked up to her side. Without looking at each other or speaking a word, we made our way over to a large sugar maple near the side of the field. We sat down and leaned against it.
After a few minutes of silence, Hannah spoke. “You know. When I was in my school choir back in Detroit a year ago, before I got sick, there was a song that we learned. My director told us that it always reminded her of a beautiful valley she had visited in the Appalachian Mountains when she was my age. It is my favorite white people song.” I couldn’t help but laugh at that comment. That’s why I’m here. I wanted to see the place the song made me think of. I hoped it would look like heaven but it looks like this. Good enough, don’t ya’ think?”
I looked up at the sky, suddenly understanding why she wanted to stop. This is what she meant by living well with limitations. In the end, it’s was all really just living.
“Oh Shenandoah…” she began singing. I knew the song well, it was one of my favorites from high school choir as well, “I long to see you…”
I joined her timidly, this was her moment, “away, you rolling river. Oh Shenandoah, I long to see you. Away, we’re bound away…across the wide Missouri.”
We harmonized through the rest of the verses, near bellowing through the final verse:
Well, it’s fare-thee-well, my dear,
I’m bound to leave you
Look away, you rollin’ river
Shenandoah, I will not deceive you
Look away, we’re bound away
Across the wide Missouri.
I looked down and noticed her legs were shaking a little. It dawned on me she probably couldn’t even feel the grass. Looking up at her and noticing she was crying, I realized she very much could. A light flashed across her face. Headlights had just sped past us on the road in front of us. “We should go. They’re going to wonder where we are.”
“Yes,” those were her final words for the night. We got back before people realized that we hadn’t been there.
Early the next morning, as I was driving off to the other site, I saw Mr. Albrecht riding quickly up to the camp in his buggy, looking incredibly worried. I sped off before I could be questioned.
I never saw any of them again.
Two years later, while I was in college in Chicago, I heard from all three.
I received an envelope from Detroit. Inside was a picture of a sunset in a valley near West Hamlin. On the back was written, “I sang here with Bruno. August, 1998.” I opened the letter. It was from Hannah’s mother letting me know she had found the picture in her photo album titled “My Book of Dreams.” She knew she would have wanted me to have it. She wrote on with the details of Hannah’s passing earlier that January.
A piece of mail from Philadelphia arrived shortly after. It was a St. Patrick’s Day card that had printed on it “’Tis the time ‘o year when only two things shall be jolly green… grass and beer.” (It was February.) Esther had written a note on the inside saying she was doing well – living alone in Philadelphia, working in a bakery. Abigail had lived with her briefly before going back to West Virginia. She thanked me for helping her get free. She also wrote that the card was one Abigail had made. I looked at the back of the card before continuing. Sure enough, it read, “Hallmark.” Hot Damn!
By the time summer had arrived, I received a large package from Abigail. It was her favorite painting of a beautiful river flowing off into the distant hills with a white bird flying above it. Every time I look at it, I’m reminded of these women who taught me all I ever needed to know about living carefree, living with freedom, and living well despite limits.
I Can't Take Me Anywhere 