Pitts Hughes came into my life as a friend of my husband Michael at the seminary. A southern lady "to the manor born" who never fit the mold, went to the female version of seminary school and spent her life tending her rambunctious flock of nurses, college students, seminary students, pastors, friends of all stripes and types. Michael and I had married and I was working full time as a social worker while he finished his last year of seminary. Pitts, Michael and Gene would often have lunch together and I heard all the stories at supper...Pitts driving down Lexington Road and Gene screaming at the top of his lungs that she was going to hit that car... going into the grocery store and while Pitts shopped, Michael and Gene regaled the clerk with stories about the old lady they had taken from the "Home"...going clothes shopping with her and giving her the benefit of their fashion nonsense. Somehow, Pitts became my friend, too. I was included in the sacred circle of friendship these three had created.
From Pitts, I learned the following: 1) Manners and style matter because they ease your way through life; 2) Don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself because that keeps the joke from being on you; 3) If you must mention your physical complaints, do so with brevity, honest recognition of your limits and move on to a story of how utter strangers can be angels in disguise; 4) Maintain your family connections; 5) You have a family of birth and family of choice.
Miss Ruby...daughter of Plains, Georgia, friend of Jimmy Carter’s mother, baker of communion bread and tea party giver extraordinaire, hymn writer, lover of baseball and river rafter in her eighties...the first person I knew who would stay up until two in the morning to hear Pavarotti sing...small, petite, white haired knot on top of her head...she taught me how to find joy in grief. Her only son was killed in World War Two, her husband died of a heart attack as they visited her son’s grave in Italy many years later. By the time I knew her, her grief had been transformed...a hymn written...their names a part of her daily life...the sadness had become a grateful remembrance of the good gift of their presence in her life.
