Red, White and Roux

           Lately I've been trying to lighten the load. I'm encumbered by a lifetime of stuff, and I just don't want most of it any more. I have one son who lives in Seattle, just about as far away as he can get, and no one else who could sort out all the memorabilia.

           I spent the day going through Rubbermaid containers stashed under the bed, wishing an old friend happy birthday, watching Forgotten Coast TV, and then Forrest Gump” on television.

           I had been planning to write about songs and music with Apalachicola in the lyrics. I have Googled, emailed, and talked on the phone. That column is still a work in progress because more and more information keeps pouring in. Did you know that “Home I'll Never Be” by Jack Kerouac mentions Apalachicola? Regular readers may recognize my “Apalachicola as Center of the Universe” theory. It just keeps getting validated. Based simply on visitors to the library doing genealogy research, I'm starting to think that there are only six degrees of separation from anyone and Apalachicola. Eat your heart out Kevin Bacon.

           Back to my day. One container had the homily from my mother's funeral in 1997. Her death prompted a crisis of faith for our priest, Tom Weller. He was with my sister and me as well as the rest of the family when we received her death sentence from the neurologist at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville. The doctor gave her 12 to 18 months. She was dead in four.

           Trinity Church was packed at her funeral and Weller's words shocked some but comforted me. He said,” Where was God through all of this? My anger has not even started to begin to dissipate and may shadow me the rest of my life. The illness and death of Audrey Roux was not the will of any God I worship. Don't say that to me. And don't tell me that everything that happens is the will of God; that is blasphemy. We are people of sin, cast out of the Garden of Eden for it, living in a sinful and broken world, and almost nothing that happens in human life is the will of God.”

           Tom Weller helped me keep my faith that day, and I am grateful to him. It took courage to step away from platitudes and reach out to thinking Christians.

           After I read his words, I found a notebook Mama had started writing when she knew she was dying. It began with her earliest memories and ended around age 13. I guess she didn't get to finish. She wrote of climbing trees, playing on the bay shore with her boy cousins Louis, Calvin, and Fred Anthony, and teaching her beloved cousin Bobby Joe Thompson how to walk. She recollected many solitary dinners by the wood stove in the kitchen. Seems that Papa Joe valued good table manners, and she was often sent out of the dining room for some culinary transgression. I relished her words and will revisit them often because they trigger many thoughts and memories of my own.

           Next on my agenda was a call to Irene, an old friend and roommate who was turning 54. We lived together in Tampa in the 70s. Once, back in the day, we visited her folks in Elizabeth, New Jersey -- Polish immigrants, both of them. Her dad never really got the language but made a life, bought property, and left a hefty financial legacy to his family. He fought in the Polish Underground in the Big War. Irene's mom was put to work by the Germans slaving away at a sewing machine for the duration of the war. She was skilled and Catholic. She survived. She met her husband in New York. They made a life. At 92, she lives near Irene in Cocoa Beach. I remember her warm embrace, pierogi, and borscht. What a woman! What a life! What a privilege to know her! Irene and I talked about mothers for close to an hour.

           After my afternoon calls I settled down on the couch with the television remote. I surfed the channels and heard a familiar voice. Yep, it was mine. Close to 20 years ago I did the voice-over for a video about this area and the impact of the oyster industry. The Apalachicola National Estuarine Sanctuary spearheaded the venture. Woody Miley wrote the script, and Dora McCarthy was the producer. As I watched on Saturday night, the program did seem dated, but in a good kind of way. My ego also received a little boost.

           I kept surfing and found the movie “Forrest Gump.” Granted, during commercial breaks I tuned in on the Olympics, the Food Network, and a Harry Potter movie. I stayed with Forrest, though, because it took me through my young adult years. There was desegregation, Vietnam and the soundtrack of that era, Johnson, Nixon, and Watergate, plus a sweet story of unconditional love.

           After a day of this, I was in a sentimental mood.

           I knew I needed to sort it all through, and so I sat down to write. I'm a lucky woman. I get to do something I enjoy and people read my words.

           Thank you Times newspaper.

Denise Roux is a regular columnist for the Apalachicola and Carrabelle Times. To reach her, email her at rouxwhit@mchsi.com