A while back I had to go to a doctor’s appointment and as I reluctantly sat down in the crowded waiting room to nervously await my turn to be poked and prodded, a razor-thin, very tired-looking black lady who had to be in her 70’s or 80’s and who was supporting herself with the aid of a cane shuffled over and sat down next to me. She apparently had just finished her examination and a nurse called to her, “Your transportation back home should be here any minute, Ms. Gordon.”
“Thank you very kindly,” she said to the nurse.
“You’re all done, huh?” I asked her, wishing that I was too.
“Yes,” she answered with a very warm smile.
“So, is everything okay?”
She nodded her head and said, “I thought there might be a little something wrong with my heart again, but the doctor said it was probably just some indigestion. I do have diabetes though, and I hope my ride gets here real soon so I can go home and get something to eat.”
Much to my surprise, the nurse suddenly called out my name and motioned that it was already my turn to go back to the examination rooms. As I stood up, my thoughts quickly turned to the fun and games awaiting me, and away from my conversation with the nice elderly lady.
A good hour later, I finally escaped from the clutches of my doctor and sadistic assistant and was making my way out of the office when I noticed that the lady I had been talking to was still sitting in her chair.
“Hasn’t your ride got here yet?” I asked.
“No,” she answered sadly shaking her head. “They had to go get somebody a lot sicker than me.”
“Where do you live?” I asked.
“I live over in West Sacramento.”
“Really?” I said. “Well, it just so happens that I live in West Sacramento too. You can ride on home with me if you’d like.”
With a devilish twinkle in her eye, she said, “I guess that would be okay — if you don’t think your wife would mind. You are married, I take it.”
“Yes,” I answered returning her smile. “But I think it would be okay with my wife to drive you home.”
“Well, I just want to make sure,” she said as she struggled to her feet for our ride home together, which after we became friends she always referred to as our first date.
Mary Hattie Gordon turned out to be 78-years old and was still full of life and sharp as a tack. She had been born in a little town called Eugula, Alabama (near Montgomery) just before the 1st World War, and later moved to West Virginia, where her father got work in the coal mines. “People were different back then,” Hattie explained to me during one of my visits to her tiny little apartment after we had become friends. “They visited more and were so much nicer to each other. They helped one another. Nowadays, people aren’t as friendly as they once were.”
All was not easy, however, for a young black girl growing up in the Deep South back in the 1920’s and 1930’s. “But things have gotten a lot better over the years,” Hattie said. “Back when I was young, if you took a package or something over to a white person’s house, you always had to be sure to go to the back door. If you forgot and went to the front door, you were liable to get hit – and by white people you had known all your life. I remember when I was 14, my daddy sat me down and told me that although it wasn’t right, colored people were treated differently than white people, and that there were things I shouldn’t do and places I shouldn’t go because if I did, I might get hurt. So, when I was young, I mostly just visited my friends and went to church. I’ve always loved going to church and it’s been a very important part of my life. People in my family have been deacons, ministers, and missionaries, and my mother always had the most beautiful voice in the choir.”
I asked Hattie why she had moved all the way out to California. “Well, my father was out here working, and he sent for all of us. After I was here for a while, I was supposed to get married to this one man, but I decided to marry this other one instead. I was 17 when I got married, but I’m afraid he turned out to be one of those born-liars, so I had to divorce him.”
“Did you marry again?” I asked.
“Yes, I did, and I was engaged a few times in the middle too. I’ve got three children and seven grandchildren, and two of those grandchildren I raised up all by myself. But after awhile my second husband got to be quite a rascal, too, so out he went. We sure had some good fights, though. He’d say, `Hattie, you’re crazy!’, and I’d say, `No, I’m the one with the good sense!’” Her contagious smile turned to laughter and then she suddenly asked me what month I was born in.
“August,” I answered.
“Which day?” she asked.
“The 18th.”
She rolled her bright eyes and smiled even wider and said, “That makes you a Leo you know, just like my second husband. Now Leo’s are a lot of fun to talk to and be around and everything, but to tell you the truth a woman in her right mind would surely never marry one of them!”
I also remember asking Hattie if there was any secret to growing old with such grace and good humor, as she had done.
“Oh, not really,” she replied. “I’ve been very lucky. The Lord has blessed me with a wonderful life. But I think the most important thing, is to always try real hard to be friendly and kind and nice to everyone – regardless.”