Hatti’s Hands.

  These are the hands of Hattie White.God rest her soul. On my last visit with Hatti, many years ago, I took this picture hoping to capture the way her hands molded my heart and soul.  But it was not possible. Here is how it all began.  Here is the story of Hattie’s hands.

I could not tell you the exact day-but the year was 1966. It was the Fall. We were living in our first home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. At that time it was just us four:  Dad, Mom, Me and Jason. Fall was always a blend of beautiful rich  Piedmont North Carolina golds, reds and browns.  My mom was working the graveyard shift at the hospital and dad was still into his residency. My brother Chris was “on the way” and my brother Dave had not even been thought of at that point. I still don’t know how my mom found her,precious magical Hattie, how it all came to be-but one morning she was there.  There was Hattie. She was dressed in a crisp white uniform-her hair was neat as a pin and her smile was infectious. She held out her hands for a hug. Even back then, Hattie’s hands were a melded blend of twists and turns.  Nails, neat and short.

“C’mere child, let me look at you”.  To this day I remember that hug-I remember the smell of baby power and something else sweet.  I remember Hattie like it was yesterday.  My brother Jason,little hellion that he was- came running around the corner , cap guns a blazing and with one look at Hattie he froze.

“You bettah slow down child- you gonna crack your head open and Miss Hattie caint fix a head”. Jason looked up from his six shooter-adjusted his Batman underwear and took in every inch of this new black person standing in our living room.

Little did Hattie know that over the next 8 years-Jason would have a knack for cracking open his head.No matter how much blood  was flowing or how much Jason was screaming.  Hattie never flinched.

And that is the way it was.When we moved into our new house up on the hill on Overland Dr. Hattie came with us-it was always Hattie.And there she would stay until we left the area.  Every day from sun-up to sun-down it was Hattie.  Soon we met her husband James who dropped her off every morning and picked her up every evening.  James  loved to watch wrestling and would sometimes fall asleep in the big leather recliner waiting for Hattie to finish up or one of my parents to get home from work.  Soon we met their daughter Danita-who, although older became one of my very first just like family friends.  My brother Chris arrived in 1967.  Hattie was there to help mom and to make sure I got on the bus to school and Jason got to preschool. In February of 1970 brother David completed our family. Hattie was there.  In between these years and throughout all these years, there were countless hours of fried bologna sandwiches, chocolate pound cake, pie and baskets of fried chicken.  Hattie’s fried chicken.  Her’s was a recipe locked deep in the core of who she was-never to be revealed.  We  would set out on our bikes during the day, play for hours and Hattie always knew where we were and what we were doing.  Once, when I plopped my banana bike down, underneath the carport-away from Dad’s lime green Karmann Ghia, a mound of black snake that had been napping on the cool concrete uncoiled and hissed  at me. I froze.  Just stood there .  And then I screamed.  Blood curdling little girl scream-at the  top of my lungs.  In what seemed like only seconds Hattie came tearing across the front yard and in one swoop grabbed the snake and flung it off to the side.

“It’s just an ole king snake”, she said. “Never would have hurt you.”  And then just as quickly she was off-having the last word.  “Scream’in like that…..”

Hattie always  has the last word.

There was a schedule to those days I will keep locked tight into my the part of  my brain that cherishes child hood memories.  There are the smells of certain foods cooking, the scent of the cream Hattie used on her hands and the way it just was with Hattie. She would set up the ironing board in the family room, bring the fresh laundry in, fold, iron and watch her stories. When out first upright piano arrived-it was Hattie that sat me on her knee and taught me how to play “heart and soul” with one finger-and then taught me the second part so she could tap away and I could tap away. Together. She kept the house, cooked meals, gave us baths, sang to us, kept us in line and knew more than anyone else the antidotes for life, love and loss.  She was a God fearing woman. If she was not with us or her family, she was at church. Nothing got past her.  Nothing escaped her mind. Hattie was part of our family. I am certain she and  my mom knew more about each other than any of us ever did. Soon, it was not just the weekdays and nights-but when my parents went away we begged for Hattie to stay with us-or better yet- we begged to go to Hattie’s house- way out on the outskirts of Chapel Hill-on a small back road in Hillsboro, North Carolina. Her yard was wide with blue hydrangeas everywhere-a rickety old clothes line in back and the most well kept house I have ever seen.  It was a small white house with a metal roof.  Extended members of her family lived two or three doors down-so we got to know them too. Those trips to Hattie’s house were the very best. In the summer months, in the heat of  summer -we would load into James old car, overnight bags packed with plenty of toys( which we never touched once we got to Hattie’s house)windows down,air blasting and set off for the long( well at least to us it seemed long) to Hattie’s house.  Without fail in those summer months, we stopped at a small country store ‘ right about  the half way mark and just when we were nodding off from the combination of heat, air and the rhythm of the road, James would get us all a co-cola, a bag of Lance salted peanuts and a Moonpie.  James always opened his bag of peanuts and poured them into his co-cola.  I’d never seen anyone do that before-so I followed suit. I didn’t like it as much as he did.

Years later when time and distance got the best of us, we did not get to see Hattie as much.  However, without fail she called on each of birthdays and she was always the first to call on Christmas morning.  It was always Hattie.  Hattie was there through all the various chapters of our lives. Marriages, babies, careers, joys and sorrows.  Hattie was there through my parents bitter divorce, mom’s cancer, mom’s dementia and mom’s passing.   One of the most touching moments in that awkward phase of life when we as children have to parent our parents, I learned a secret about my mom.  A secret about Hattie.  A secret that told the depth of their friendship.  We left Chapel Hill in 1975. It was the end of a chapter-the beginning of many more.  And that year and every year until 2009,my mom would send Hattie a “little something extra” for Christmas and for her birthday.  When  my mom could no longer remember to keep up the gifts, we did it for her- Chris, David and I taking turns. And then, when mom died on July 16, 2011, we picked up the phone to let Hattie know.  Hattie cried. Wept softly.  And then, a month to the day later, on August 16, 2011 Hattie died.  She was 96.