FanStory.com - High Level of aggravationby lynglyng

I was five years old the first time I can remember realizing that something was different about my mother. It was around 1974. We had a pea-green, Chevrolet Impala with matching pea-green, pleather seats. I remember those seats vividly because my legs always stuck to them in the summer. The front seat was a bench seat, where I was always sandwiched in the middle between Mama and my brother, Ben. One particular day when I noticed we were traveling to the Winn-Dixie to get groceries, Mama was whispering under her breath. I thought she was talking to me and Ben.

She grew quiet, ignoring me. After that day in the car, she started whispering under her breath more and more. I was just a child, but I could tell something was off. It wasn’t long until others began to express the same ideas about Mama’s peculiar ways..

We lived in a rural area. To say that it was a small town would be an understatement. It was just a spot on the road. Everyone knew everyone and everyone knew everyone’s business. My father had attended our small, pentecostal church since he was a little boy. It was no wonder that he was church treasurer. I still remember my Sunday School class. The picture of Jesus with all the little children surrounding him with one child sitting on his lap. The smell of the cool, musty basement and the little, wooden chairs. Mrs.Clardy, my Sunday school teacher, told us about Jesus’s love while she passed out Kool-Aid and animal cookies. I was glad that my Grandma Mabel went to our same church because if my mama did happen to come to church, she sometimes decided to hop up and run out. She would stay in the car until the service was over. When Mama left the service early, my grandma would have me sit with her. She would search her pocketbook to find me a peppermint candy. Then, she would put her arm around me. I always felt safe with Grandma Mabel. My daddy was busy in the little room beside the choir counting the offerings. Sometimes mama didn’t come at all to church with us. If Mama stayed home from church, Ben and I would sit with Grandma Mabel, me, and Ben. On Sunday, all the older kids went up front to sing before the big choir sang. Ben told me that I was too little to go up front with him,

“Why can’t I go with you, Ben?”

“Kim, I already told you, you’re too little. Just go sit with grandma.”

“ I want to go with you, Ben!”

I began to cry and get hysterical. When I got to Grandma Mabel’s pew, I was in a full hissy fit.

“Kimberly, what is the matter?”

“Ben won’t let me sing with him, He said I was too little. I’m not too little!”

“Well, you just go right on up there with Ben.”

So, that is exactly what I did in my pixie dress with my lacy socks and black patent leather shoes. My blonde curls bouncing with every step of the way.

On the Sundays Mama did come with us she never seemed to be happy about being in church. I never knew why, I loved to go to church. Everything about being in church appealed to me. The cleanliness of everyone in their Sunday best, The smell of peppermint candy. The songs that we sang from the old hymnals. All of it made me feel happy.

There, however, was one person at church that scared me. Sister Hughes. She had a striking resemblance to the ugly witch in the movie, The Wizard of Oz. I never liked that woman, not because she was scary ugly, but because she used to say mean things about my mama. I heard her talking to my grandma one Sunday when I came up from Sunday School.

“Mabel, I don’t like to talk about people, but you must admit that something is strange about Your daughter-in-law, Carolyn. The way she gets up and runs out of church. It’s downright disturbing, I heard Janice Kelvey, the school secretary say that she keeps the kids out of school days at a time.”

“ First of all, Cora Hughes, the Lord’s house is no place for gossip; secondly, it is none of your business.”

That’s when scary Sister Hughes pointed her skinny, crooked finger at my grandma and shouted, “Your daughter-in-law is demon-possessed. That’s why she runs out of this church during service. I’m not the only one who’s witnessed her sitting at a light with no one in the car talking to herself.”

I stomped my black, patterned leather shoe down as hard on the wooden floor. ”My mama is not demon pos-- whatever you said, you are wrong, my mama is good!” I cried and ran to my grandma.

“That little girl is probably possessed too, screaming at an elder that way! I will request that the General Overseer visit our church and make a motion for a prayer service to be set up to pray the demon out of Carolyn.”

“You are way out of line Cora Hughes! Come along Ben, Kimberly.”

My grandmother took Ben and me straight to her house that Sunday. I didn’t mind leaving church early that day. For one, I was scared of Sister Hughes. Secondly, Ben and I got to eat before the rest of the family got to her house that day.