Food, Death, and the South

I love the South. I love being a Southerner (by the grace of God). It's warm and lush and sometimes a little beat-up and impoverished, but the people are good, and there is community, and there is sometimes even a little leisure. And I am from Georgia.

So, we had a death in the family recently, and I was overwhelmed and shocked by the immediate, enormous support we received from our community. Not only did we receive buckets of cards, but not once did anyone have to cook, make a call, run an errand, do a chore, nothing. We were completely cared for and loved. We got fried chicken and peach pie and pound cake and pork roast and pot roast and pimento cheese and rolls and hashbrown casserole and dressing and gravy and butterbeans and green beans and yams and sweet tea and cole slaw and cookies and you name it. We had people stopping in to check on us, sending neighbors to do the same, calling kin, singing songs, praying, adding us to prayer chains, offering to help - the phone rang 'round the clock. The grass was even cut (and we're talking about several acres worth of bush-hogging here) while the family was making arrangements at the funeral home one day. It was incredible.

So, I'm proud to come from the Christ-haunted South, where the flies bite and the dirt's red and the lakes are all dusty. And I'll write my piece on food some other time.