We had a Baptist bar mitzvah the other night. Nicholas’ parents decided that his hitting the advanced age of 13 was significant enough to commemorate with some rite of passage. They invited some men from the church and the ministers and a couple of Nicholas’ buddies for refreshments and a time of sharing. Each man addressed Nick on “what I wish someone had told me when I was 13.” Most of us can go for hours on that subject. Fortunately, we didn’t and the entire event lasted about an hour. Nicholas held up well.
I told Nick what happened my 13th year. At the lowest point in my family’s life, we received the greatest blessing, one that came disguised as a death.
My dad was jobless, the coal mines in our area of North Alabama not hiring. Our family of eight had left the depressed coal-fields of West Virginia and moved into a rented house owned by an uncle, across the hill from our grandmother’s home. Two years later, the six children had nearly worn out the clothes bought up north during better times. As the fourth child, my hand-me-down clothes grew more and more thread-bare. Either I had no coat or none I had the courage to wear, so on cold wintry mornings I stood outside waiting for the school bus in short sleeves, telling anyone who would listen that “when we lived on the mountain in West Virginia, now, that was cold!”
We grew vegetables in the field behind the house, and neighbors shared their produce. Dad joked, “We might go naked, but we won’t starve to death!” It was weak comfort to a 13-year-old.