ahh, time for me to dissert once again... (really that word was WAY too easy for me to work into this post, come on wordsmith bring me a challenge)...
this group of women could have gone under my grandmother’s post, since she was one of the coca-cola klatch (if i was all cutie, i would spell it coca-cola clatch, but i HATE it when people change the spelling to make all the letters the same... ex... kids kuts). but i decided to give this group of women their own post. since i do have 33 of these posts left and not many of you are stepping up and changing my life...
my grandmother had the most amazing group of friends (some of them were related to her, but if you live in tallahassee, you know that EVERYONE is related to someone here, so i don’t think these gals HAD to be her friends). we thought they ALL were related to us because in typical southern fashion, we called them all aunt. aunt becca, aunt vertis (who really was an aunt), aunt mary effa (who i think was a relative also), and mrs. maxwell (who had been a nurse and nursed my grandfather through his cancer, she was an early hospice type nurse before that even existed). hmmm, i don’t know why mrs. maxwell didn’t reach aunt status. maybe all those other ones were related to us. i should really research these things before i blog about them. wait, i can do the research WHILE i am blogging...
shout out to missy here... are you related to me? if so then your grandmom (aunt becca), really was an aunt. we will get this controversy cleared up as soon as missy reads my blog and responds....
there, i feel better about truth in blogging.
anyway back to the coca-cola klatch. they are the reason that my husband married me. i know some of you think it was my beauty, some think perhaps my wit, some wonder if i have other skills in other areas... well, i don’t. it was the coca-cola klatch. and i am forever in their debt. well, most of the time in their debt... more about adam and the coco-cola klatch to come later...
this group met once or twice a week at someone’s house round their kitchen table. drinking coca-cola of course. i think they even drank it in the olden days when it had cocaine in it.... that might have cemented their friendship even further. but by the time i knew these women, they were drug free....
and now missy stops reading my blog because i have just called her grandmother a druggie.
they also had cakes and other treats at these round the kitchen table, solve the problems of the world chats. these women did not consider it to be a visit UNLESS you had eaten something (i might be able to blame my weight problems on them as well). these women had been through tough times, they had seen each other through spouses dying, children dying, sons going off to war, sons coming home from war forever changed, divorces of children in a time when that was a HUGE deal, and most likely a myriad of other things that i never even knew about, and some that i hope to never experience in my life. they knew what it meant to be friends through the tough days. they knew how important phone calls were, how to hear each other’s voices was to feel safe and loved, they knew friendship. and they made it a priority. they met together, ate together, talked together, lived their lives together. the things they knew about each other’s broken dreams, broken promises, broken lives. and the things they knew about the One who can heal the brokenness and how sometimes he uses friends to hold the pieces together while the glue is drying.
these women didn’t go to therapy. they went to the kitchen table together regularly.
She is a friend of mind.
She gather me, man.
The pieces I am,
she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.
It's good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind.
~Toni Morrison, Beloved
they discussed politics fiercely, the television show “dallas”, news, their views on that news, whether or not o.j simpson was guilty (my grandmother was strongly in the innocent camp on that one) and they most likely had a bit of the gossip in those round the table discussions too, God love those southern women. they had known the depression and they had lived through it and now had homes and times of plenty and i am sure talked about how good they had it now. their families were raised spread wide around the country and they most likely discussed each and every family member.
when adam would visit tallahassee whilst we were a’courtin’, my parents did not let him stay at our house (wise parental units that they were) and he stayed at my grandmother’s house. which thrilled my grandmother and he liked it a bit too much for my liking... many a time, i would come up to her house to see him and he would be just a sittin’ at the kitchen table with all the gals, making them all laugh uproariously. they thought he was “precious”. he thought they were “adorable”. he married me just so he could join in on their discussions as a member of the “family”. i swear he married me to be a legitimate coca-cola klatcher. and i can handle that. it is an auspicious title and who wouldn’t want to be in that group? who wouldn’t want to have a group like that?
i would...
and i do...
mine is a sKrapbook klatch (hee hee hee, see the top to this post to remind yourself why that made me laugh). we sit around tables and scrapbook and talk and share our lives. we email, and call, and ichat together. and i don’t need therapy (the comment section may be full of other opinions at the end of this post). i need my friends. i need my klatch. and thanks to those women who sat at my grandmother’s kitchen table, i knew how to cultivate a klatch for myself. i know it involves time and energy and food and cocaine (just kidding). i think of all the things that i have done in this life, that is one thing i have done fairly well, i friend well. i had a LOT of help from God (really He is the One who Friends well) who put these women in my life and really close so that i couldn’t ignore them (well, i could have, but really how could someone have ignored dina or deaver?) and He has never let them leave my life. they may have moved, i may have moved, but our hearts have not moved from the position of friendship. not ever, not swayed, not doubted that these were our sisters, this was our klatch.
When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us,
we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures,
have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.
The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion,
who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement,
who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing
and face with us the reality of our powerlessness,
that is a friend who cares.
~Henri Nouwen
so i owe a debt of gratitude to my grandmother’s coca-cola klatch. i thank them for subtly wooing my husband and letting him rest assured that while i might not always be the HOT blonde from florida that he started dating, that i would have excellent role models for growing in wisdom and the beauty that never fades from all those beautiful woman that he charmed so effectively at the table. adam has always been so supportive of my friendships, my “weekend trips” that start on wednesday and last until mondays. he know of their therapeutic value in my life (and he know how expensive real therapy is and we all know that he is all about the cheaper options... oh, sorry honey, i mean THRIFTIER options).
may those coca-cola klatchers all be chatting and drinking coca-cola and eat cakes together for an eternity in heaven. and now that my grandmother knows whether or not o.j simpson was guilty or not. may it not disturb her eternal peace to know that she might have been wrong....