The Well-Wrapped Life: Excerpt from “Soul Food”

by Beth

I’m so pleased to share with you another story from my book Soul Food: Life-Affirming Stories Served with Side Dishes and Just Desserts. The themes are acceptance, compassion and asking for help when you need it. In this story Dr. Franklin Rutledge thinks about Martha Rae Edmonds, a former client, as he prepares to deliver a lecture to college students majoring in psychology.

The Well-Wrapped Life

“Life’s a gift, baby. Wrap yourself well!” This line from a commercial advertising the latest fashion trends describes Mrs. Martha Rae Edmonds to a T, and it’s the first line of my upcoming talk to a group of psychology majors on the client-therapist relationship.

As I left the parking lot and started across campus to Webster Hall, I found myself reflecting on my connection with Mrs. Edmonds. She was seventy-seven years old when I met her. During our first session, I asked her how she would like her racial identity recorded and offered her the two most common terms—Black or African American. Mrs. Edmonds pressed her thin lips together and declared, “I’m not Black or African! I’m Brown, and I’m American!”

I asked her to tell me what she meant, and the response took up a full fifteen minutes of our first session. She was clear and adamant as she proclaimed that many African tribes had been complicit in the slave trade. And because names were changed and records either destroyed, poorly kept or nonexistent, there was no way she would ever know where her ancestors had come from.

Her eyes flashed in irritation at me as she added, “And even if I did know, what incentive would any African nation or tribe have to welcome me, what with the amount of White and Indigenous blood running through my veins?” She sucked her teeth and finished with a strong “Humph!”

I carefully kept my face neutral as I checked the “two or more” box on my racial identity form. I understood her view, perhaps even shared it to a degree, but what I needed to begin the therapeutic process was to understand why she’d come to see me.

As a young therapist, my approach had been to get to the heart of the problem as quickly as possible and use my professional knowledge to “fix” people. I had a bad case of savioritis back then.

It took time, several failures and more than a few therapy sessions of my own before I replaced “fix” with “heal.” I also came to realize how much I could learn about my own issues as I helped my clients with theirs.

I asked Mrs. Edmonds to tell me more about herself. I learned she was widowed with three children, Virginia, Adrienne and Tony, and four grandchildren, three living and one deceased. After her husband’s death eleven years ago, she’d stopped taking the bus and got her license in order to drive his green Ford Escort. Then she ran for and won a seat on the town’s board of education. She’d campaigned the old-fashioned way: going door-to-door in the neighborhoods and stopping in the bars and restaurants in town to shake hands and pass out flyers. After her term ended, she was appointed municipal historian.

In her new position, she’d wrapped herself in her love of history and words by spending hours in the town library poring over old books, documents and records. She excitedly told me about the finds she’d uncovered. Her finds became notes, the notes became drafts, and the drafts became brochures about our town’s founding and history. There followed awards and an honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Greenwood College.

As she listed her accomplishments, her face became animated—an arched, well-shaped eyebrow and a self-satisfied smile accompanied each one. As her smiles grew wider, her lips parted to reveal a partial gold cap on her right front tooth. She spoke with gusto, relish and perfect diction.

Of course, I complimented her on her successes. And my compliments were genuine; I was impressed by her energy and drive, two qualities we shared. I too had a list of professional accomplishments: awards, honorary degrees and important board positions. On paper, we were both successful. But appearances on paper often do not match the truth of the lives they portray.

I took the next step to dig beneath her polished surface. I crossed my legs, leaned forward and asked, “Mrs. Edmonds, what brings you to therapy?”

She sat back, took in a deep breath, and let it out. Silence followed, filling the room and sitting between us.

I never break these moments. It’s important to let the client find their voice, and they eventually do.

Finally she said, “Well, Dr. Rutledge, I’m not a fan of talking about private matters to strangers. Never have been. And I certainly don’t want to talk about my issues with my children, especially with the way things are now.”

“And what way is that?” I asked softly.

“Things are changing between us.” She paused. “You see, I always wanted my children to be happy, so I did what mothers do. I pushed, prodded, suggested and, if I’m honest, criticized. I… I—” She stopped and shook her head.

“And?” I urged.

She looked at me and sighed. “My son’s life is a mess. He dropped out of college, divorced three times, can’t keep a job for more than a few months, and is always coming up with get-rich-quick schemes that never pan out. I don’t know how he pays the rent and keeps the lights on, but he is a good father and his boys seem happy.”

“And your relationship with your daughters?”

“Until last year, pretty grim. One is divorced and remarried, and the other is in an unhappy marriage to a totally unsuitable man but can’t seem to get it together enough to either stay or leave. They always ignored all my advice and clearly resented me giving it to them, but after Thanksgiving last year things started to change.”

“In what way?”

Her eyes brightened. “At Christmas, Virginia and Adrienne

asked me to give them our family recipes and show how to make them. They said they would alternate family dinners between them to help out and give me a break. I resisted, but they insisted. And frankly I was relieved. I’ve always done the cooking, but honestly it was getting harder every year to do it all.”

“Could you have asked them to help you do the cooking at your home?”

Mrs. Edmonds shook her head. “Uh, no. There can be only one cook in my kitchen and that’s me. Now, don’t get me wrong, I still have to put my two cents in once in a while, but they’re doing all right. Now I have more time to think, and I’ve been thinking more about me and… Well, you see, my time, like yours and everyone else’s, is running out.” She sat back, crossed her legs, and looked me in the eye. “I do not want to meet my maker dragging a passel of demons along with me. I need to tie up the loose ends of my life. That’s why I’m here.”

This was what I’d been waiting to find out. It was clear Mrs. Edmonds was ready to allow herself to enter a client-therapist relationship that did not carry judgments.

Judgment. This was another difficult lesson I’d had to learn. I was guilty of judging many of my clients, and often still do, but I’ve learned the importance of keeping it to a minimum and checking myself when I do it. It’s a constant dance. I’m always learning new steps. And depending on the client, it can be difficult not to judge, especially if one happens to be self-judgmental.

I was and often still am hard on myself. I came to see this as another characteristic I shared with Mrs. Edmonds. Honestly, the more I listened to her, the more she reminded me of myself. I’m sure that’s one reason our time together left such a strong impression on me.

When I asked how she chose me to be her therapist, she smiled mischievously.

“Six degrees of separation, Dr. Rutledge. Well, it’s six degrees of separation most places, but in this town it’s more like one or two. You see, my daughter Virginia knows your former wife, who recommended you. And it’s rather comforting to know that if I’m going to talk to a stranger, at least it’s a stranger who’s known to someone I know.”

Marceline! My heart shrinks a bit every time I think about my divorce—or rather her divorce, since she divorced me. As an unwilling ex-husband, I’m still struggling to come to grips with my sadness and sorrow, even though I now understand her reasons for divorcing me.

Like Mrs. Edmonds’s expectations for her children, I had expectations for my marriage. And like Mrs. Edmonds, I pushed, prodded and even criticized to convince Marceline to be what I wanted her to be, instead of accepting her for who she was. Marceline never shared my expectations of her or for us.

I pushed that memory aside and returned my attention to the woman in front of me. Although Mrs. Edmonds appeared strong and resilient, she was also vulnerable. For many reasons, she had waited a long time to wrap herself in a life of her own making, I think largely because most of her earlier wrappings were made for her. She, like me, was born in the South. She’d had to deal with all that meant for Black folks trying to get by and “make a way out of no way,” as the saying goes.

Her father left shortly after her birth. Her mother died when she was three, and she was sent north to be raised in the authoritarian household of an aunt and uncle at a time when society did not care what a woman might want outside of husband, home and children. Except for Black women, of course, who were expected to do it all—bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan, manage the household, and pamper the man.

Mrs. Edmonds learned the lesson well and sang that song for the next fifty years. She’d graduated secretarial school at the top of her class, but unable to find a job in that field, instead ended up working as a salesclerk in a drugstore, all while keeping house, being a wife and a mother to three children, and handling the legal and financial responsibilities of the household.

Underneath those outer wrappings, Martha Rae Edmonds hid her vulnerability along with her demons. And she did have demons, though until now she’d been reluctant to face them, trace them or erase them.

However, she was, as I learned over our time together, an expert in sniffing them out. She’d let them raise their eyes from her subconscious mind and open their mouths to speak. Then she would smash the lid of defiance, dismissal and denial on top of their heads.

Did that work for her in the long term? Sadly, no, because despite Mrs. Edmonds’s glowing community and social success, her wrappings had started to come apart at the seams and experienced more than a few rips and frayed edges. The demons boldly peeked out over the brave toss of her head, the flick of her hand, and the smile on her lips that never quite reached her eyes.

Mrs. Edmonds and I met weekly over the next several months. As she began to trust me, she allowed the demons to tiptoe up and out. One by one, they fell from her lips to my ears and my notepad.

Her mouth would tighten as she expressed anger at the father who’d left, moved to Oklahoma, and started a new family. She explored the crushing hurt that he’d visited her only once, on her twelfth birthday, and that she had two half-siblings she’d never met.

She shared her sadness at losing her mother and her fear at leaving the South and moving north to live with an aunt and uncle she hardly knew. “It was hard living under their rules,” she said. “Uncle insisted that I read the newspaper to him every morning, and he would correct my diction and pronunciation over and over until I lost my southern accent.”

She described her aunt as a harsh taskmistress who insisted her free time be spent working in the garden, chicken coops and kitchen. “I felt like a servant. But thanks to them, I learned to speak the King’s English and run a tight household.”

Her shoulders drooped as she talked about the utter exhaustion she’d experienced working a day job and coming home to what she described as her “third shift”—taking care of her husband, her children, her house and her church activities.

She teared up as she told me of the grief she felt when her grandchild, Tony’s daughter, Tamisha, died at age eight from a rare blood disease.

My job as her therapist was to create a safe space, listen to her pain, and respond with empathy and warmth to show I understood what she was feeling. It wasn’t hard. Our shared southern background and need to be in control to ward off vulnerability gave us solid points of connection that transcended gender and age. I listened and passed her the box of tissues when necessary. I understood her because I was learning to understand myself.

When the last demon was outed, she paused, looked at me, cocked her head, and shrugged her shoulders. “Not a pretty picture, is it?”

She may have seen things that way, but what I saw was the gift of a woman who’d faced her demons and was wrestling them to the ground. I saw a woman no longer hiding under the superficial trappings of awards, fame, fashion and family perfection; a woman newly wrapped in honesty, strength and resilience.

Watching her progress over our time together, I could not help but think about my own. I was still wrestling with my demons of privilege, perfectionism and social status, acknowledging how they’d driven me most of my adult life, how they’d driven away the woman I loved and ended my marriage. I’m still sorting things out and making amends. I’m not sure Marceline and I can ever reconcile, but we are talking and establishing a genuine friendship. That’s progress.

One crisp fall day several months later, Mrs. Edmonds walked through my office door, took her place on the couch, and folded her hands in her lap. She was clear, firm, formal and deliberate. “Dr. Rutledge, I want to thank you for your help, but the time has come to terminate our sessions.”

She watched my face for a reaction and got none. But she did get the question I always ask in moments like this.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she replied with a nod.

I followed with the next question recommended by protocol. “Have your goals been met, or is there another reason you care to share with me?”

“Well, Dr. Rutledge, if all my goals were met, my son would hold down a good job and stop pestering the family to invest in his schemes, Virginia would call me more than once a week to check in, Adrienne would find a way to make her marriage work, and I’d be able to locate and meet my missing siblings if they are still alive.”

She looked at me. I looked back, keeping my face neutral.

“None of those things have happened, but I have forgiven my father for abandoning me. I’ve made peace with losing my mother, my husband and Tamisha. I have a more accepting and realistic view of my childhood with my aunt and uncle. They did their best, and I’m doing mine. I’ve softened my expectations of how my children should live their lives. And as a result, we are slowly growing closer.”

Her face softened. “I’m in a place where I can move forward with a bit more ease. I’ve learned that nothing is perfect.” She grinned, her gold cap sparkling. “Not even me.” She leaned forward. “I never thought I’d be able to do this kind of work, but I did, and it’s because of you. Thank you, Dr. Rutledge.”

Ending therapy sessions is always a mixed bag. Some clients leave to seek another therapist or another type of therapy, or because they just need a break. Others feel I’m not challenging them enough, or that I’m challenging them too much. Some can’t afford the cost. Others, like Mrs. Edmonds, feel they’ve gone about as far as they can in the therapeutic process. And so we parted. I was sad to see her go, but she was ready. I wanted to give her a hug but felt it might be taken the wrong way. She must have sensed my unexpressed desire for she patted my cheek as she left.

I like to think Mrs. Edmonds no longer saw me as a stranger but as a friend and fellow traveler on the road to making peace with life. She may have come to therapy to heal her anger, sadness and disappointments, but as much as I helped her, she also helped me. We both grew from our work together.

Nine months after our sessions ended, Virginia called to tell me that her mother had passed away in her sleep. I was saddened to learn that but confident that Mrs. Martha Rae Edmonds had met her maker with a calm heart, clear mind and clean slate. I still think of her fondly, and her well-wrapped life continues to inspire mine.

After Professor Ortiz introduced me to his class, I walked up to the podium in Webster Hall with the memory of Martha Rae Edmonds sitting comfortably on my shoulders and in my heart. I looked out over those young faces and opened my lecture with “Life’s a gift, baby. Wrap yourself well!

 

Beth’s self-awareness newsletter is published six times a year. It features informative, inspiring and entertaining tips for finding clarity, contentment, and resilience in a complicated world. For more information and to sign up for the newsletter go to www.bethgibbs.com.

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