Nashville – Part 6

I had planned to stay in Nashville longer than I did, but as Thanksgiving drew closer I got homesick for Maryland so I ended up leaving a few days before the holiday. In retrospect I wish I’d stayed for Thanksgiving; I was too stupid and self-centered to realize how important it would have been to both Hazel and me. I was young and I was dumb, it ain’t a good excuse but it’s the best one I can use.

As I’ve previously mentioned, Hazel was one of my coworkers in the kitchen at Ireland’s Steak and Biscuits. She was tall and slender with the lines of life on her face, I’m old enough now to know what those lines were, back in Nashville I was young and dumb. All of my kitchen coworkers were kind and good to me, it was one of the nicer places I’ve worked in my many working years.

Early in November, as talk of Thanksgiving arose in the kitchen (the restaurant would be closed Thanksgiving), Hazel asked me if I had a place to go for Thanksgiving. When I told her I didn’t have anywhere to spend Thanksgiving she said, “I’d like you to come to my home and be with my family.” After I accepted the invitation she looked at me closely and said in measured tones, “Bob, I’ve never had a white person in my house, you’ll be the first one.”

This is, I hope you’ll see, why I should have put my homesickness aside and stayed for Thanksgiving – I should have done it for Hazel and I should have done it for me – I know it would have been sweet. Hazel had watched me during my time at Ireland’s Steak and Biscuits; she had watched me work, she had watched me talk, she had watched the way I treated my coworkers, she had watched my friendship develop with Joe and Sally. After all this watching she wanted to invite me into her home.

I can still see my coworkers; Joe and Sally, Irene, Tony, and Hazel. That kitchen was a safe place for me, I enjoyed working there because of them; the work could be long and hot, but the place was safe and relationally relaxed – they all looked out for me, the new guy, they were all kind to me, the stranger in town.

There are times people have said things to me that I’ve never forgotten, things that penetrated deep into my soul, words that were planted within my heart. Some of them have been wakeup calls to rethink what I was doing, even repent; some have been questions to reflect upon, others have been words of encouragement, and yet others are in a category that I can’t define. There was the time a lady said to me, “Do you know why I don’t come to church anymore?”

I replied, “I think I do, but please tell me.”

She said, “Before you arrived here I could sit in church and not have to think about much, not be challenged; but you are clear about what you’re preaching and I’m not ready to accept it.” This lady remained in a women’s Bible study because she had friends in it, and she remained friends with Vickie and me, but she didn’t come back to Sunday-morning church. Her words to me are in the undefinable category.

There is a pastor in Richmond, VA who has said that you don’t really know people until you put your feet under their table at home to eat with them. There is a lot of truth in that statement. I do wish I’d had Thanksgiving at Hazel’s.