A Rock in Walker County

A Rock in Walker County

Miss Lane lived alone and it was impossible to say how old she was. It seemed like she’d been in our town forever; like the Baptist Church on Main Street so old the steeple was tilting. Miss Lane was there every Sunday, rain or shine.

She never missed the quilting circles, always bringing her famous banana pudding. Nobody could make a meringue peak like Miss Lane.

How she supported herself was a mystery. She lived comfortably in a house three blocks from the church. It was a white clapboard with a large front porch. Her wicker furniture set was perfect for company. There were ancient oaks in her yard, pecan trees, azalea bushes and crepe myrtles lining both sides of the house.

Yet there was something not normal about Miss Lane. Not abnormal though. No, that didn’t fit this elderly Southern lady in pearls and low-heeled black leather shoes. 

Miss Lane was a fixer. She corrected things and people who had gone in an unacceptable direction. Miss Lane never discussed her ways. I don’t know a soul who would ask her about them although some certainly knew. 

It could be anything. Like if the preacher went over the twenty minute sermon limit, which was the understood amount of time he should preach. One of the deacons would catch Miss Lane’s eye and something would happen. Like the preacher would have a coughing fit or lose his voice. Then the choir director would quickly lead us in a closing hymn of one verse only and we’d all go home. 

Fixing a big thing was rare but it happened. Like the church organist’s husband who was a drunk and would beat her regularly. One Sunday Caroline Beacon looked awful, even with heavy makeup. Her lip was busted and her right eye was swollen shut. Miss Lane had whispered in her ear. 

Carolyn Beacon told what transpired. It’s a process others have gossiped about for decades. She went to Miss Lane’s house where she was served iced tea and caramel cake.

Then Miss Lane asked Caroline to tell her about the problem, which was her husband Wayne. They made a list of his good qualities on one sheet of paper. His bad ones on another. On the third sheet, Caroline wrote down her opinion of how to best solve the problem.

Miss Lane told Carolyn to fold the third sheet of paper twice and put it in her purse. Then she gave Carolyn a map of Walker County with a big red X on a spot that was near the county line. Miss Lane said she’d watch the kids while Carolyn was on her mission. 

Carolyn was to go to the spot to find a huge rock—which was located exactly where the red X was—and leave that paper in a crevice in the rock.

Then Carolyn did as instructed. She had knelt down and prayed a specific prayer, only six words that Miss Lane had dictated. Carolyn took those words and absorbed them into her spirit and meant every word. Then she turned her back to the rock and walked straight to her car and left. There was no looking back.

Carolyn drove home to find Miss Lane sitting on the sofa, knitting a burgundy afghan. When Carolyn walked in, Miss Lane said “Good night, child” and left.

Her two children, Missy and Maxwell, were asleep in their beds. There was food on the stove covered in tin foil. The house was spotless and the radio was softly playing gospel music. 

There was no sign of Wayne Beacon. Although his whereabouts were unknown, Carolyn could feel his absence and the ball of steel in her stomach, made of fear and worry, began to melt away. Slowly at first, then quickly. Her mood was nearly giddy and though she felt as if it wasn’t becoming of her, she rode that wave all night. She told my mama she felt simple peace and security.

I desperately wanted to know all about Miss Lane and exactly what the deal was with her. A lot of problems that us kids thought she solved could have been chalked up to coincidence. But that business of writing down on paper and leaving it in a rock is something that couldn’t have been a coincidence. There’s too much intention behind an act like that. And the results were big and mysterious. I knew some teenagers who had driven every old road in the county looking for that rock and never found it.

I would ride my bike past her house and sometimes stopped to chat if she was in her yard. Miss Lane had beautiful flowers, plants and shrubs in her yard. She won Yard of the Month so often from the city that she asked them to give it to somebody else.

Our chats were always pleasant and appropriate for a 10-year-old girl. “How are your mama and daddy?” Or “I hope you’re applying yourself in your piano lessons.” One time she invited me onto her porch for cake and lemonade. It was the day after my grandpa’s funeral. 

“I’m so sorry to hear that Mr. Taylor passed away,” she had said. While I ate my cake, she read to me about seasons. Everything has a season; there’s a time to be born and a time to die, she had read. It was much longer than that, but that’s the part I recall because I started to cry. I had not cried at all until then. Miss Lane gave me a real hankie and hugged me for a long time. It was wonderful and I felt light as a feather afterward. It seemed as if she had taken all the sadness right out of me.

After that, the mystery of Miss Lane faded. She was still there, but became part of the fabric and foundation of my early life, what I stood on as I grew up and left for college and then a job in Birmingham. 

Things were great. I had a brief marriage that brought forth the miracle of my som. He was only four when my phone rang and it was my doctor’s office calling. She wanted to see me. The news was devastating. Then came a double mastectomy, chemo and radiation. I was too sick to work and moved back in with my parents in Walker County. It was the right thing to do as I hurtled toward certain death because Lukas needed family around him. As each day passed, I realized that I didn’t fear death but I did fear suffering. Mostly I feared leaving my son. The pain of that bond being severed was unbearable. 

As I lay in my old bedroom contemplating another round of chemo and its misery, my thoughts turned to Miss Lane. It had not yet occurred to me to seek her out. She made problems disappear so maybe she could make cancer disappear. Surely I had nothing to lose. 

I called before I went over. She didn’t sound surprised to hear from me and invited me to come see her before I had a chance to ask. Gathering my strength, I made the short trip to her house where she was waiting on her front porch. 

“It’s so nice to see you!” she said. We hugged and she directed me to her front parlor. There was a caramel cake and iced tea waiting on a coffee table. She made small talk while she cut cake slices and poured tea. 

“Tell me about your son.” I hadn’t told her I had a son. But I felt a surge of joy to speak about Lukas. My heart, my everything. I spoke for awhile about him, which was a good transition for me to tell her why I was really there. 

“Miss Lane, I’m sick. It’s cancer and I’ve done everything the doctors said to do, but I’m losing. Losing the fight, I think. I don’t deserve to live any more than any other cancer patient, but when I think about Lukas growing up without his mother, it wrecks me. I’m mad, I’m terrified. And I’m just very sad.”

Miss Lane kept a steady gaze on me as I spoke. She handed me a real hankie just like she’d done years ago when my grandpa died. She didn’t speak but her gaze never left me and I was comforted by it. 

“The thing is, Miss Lane, over the years, I’ve heard that you help people with their problems. I’m sorry if you think I was gossiping, as it was not gossip. It was…it was gratitude. I don’t know if it’s true or not but I have no hope. So if you can give me hope, then maybe Lukas will grow up with his mother.”

She sipped her tea for a few seconds before speaking. “Faith and hope walk together, child. Sick or well, you exist in many ways, miraculous ways.”

I didn’t understand that at all. Maybe I was too sick to wrap my brain around what was clearly a riddle of sorts. 

“Miss Lane I don’t know how you do things for people, but I know that you do. Carolyn Beacon told my mama about coming to you and then her crazy husband just disappeared. Into thin air. Well, his car too but he was gone.”

“Gracious child, you make me sound like the mob!” She was smiling. “Wayne Deacon came by to see me just a month ago. He is in AA and has been sober for six years now. Carolyn has forgiven him and married a delightful young man. An accountant I think.”

I was stunned. I’d never given too much thought to what happened to Wayne. In my child’s mind, I thought he just went “poof.” Courtesy of the woman serving me cake. 

Miss Lane walked over to an antique captain’s desk and opened the top of it. She picked up a single piece of paper and a pen and handed them to me. 

“While I’m clearing these dishes, write down exactly what you want to happen. Just one sentence. Take your time.” 

She nudged the coffee table toward me so I’d have a spot to write on. I didn’t need time to think. Time was not my friend. I quickly wrote “Take this cancer from me.” 

Miss Lane came back from the kitchen and instructed me to fold the note twice and put it in my purse. She then went to an antique buffet in her dining room which I could see from where I was sitting. She opened the big drawer and pulled out a map. 

“There’s a rock on the county line, Walker County side. Some might say it’s a boulder. Follow this map, the red X marks the location of the rock.” 

So there really was a rock! This was really happening to me and I felt a jolt of energy just thinking about it. Wayne Beacon may not have been “poofed” away but the bad part of him was certainly exorcized. That was all I wanted for myself. I was desperate to be rid of this disease.

“When you get to the spot, walk toward the rock very carefully. It’s not an easy path. The rock has a crevice on the right side. Once you’ve put the note in, kneel down and pray this prayer. You must truly mean it, dear.”

She took my hands in her warm, soft hands for a second, then leaned in and whispered a prayer in my ear. It was very short. Just six words. 

The sun was setting and I knew it would be dark before I made it to that spot, that rock of hope. But I didn’t care. I drove straight there without letting my family know where I was going and what I was about to do.

This was a county road with no streetlights and I passed only one car as I approached the place to pull off the road. It was so dark that I could see nothing after I turned off the car’s headlights. 

I used the flashlight on my phone to spot the path and started walking gingerly down toward where I thought the big rock must be. 

A sudden intense stream of blue light beamed from above directly onto the rock which was about twenty yards from me. It was as if a helicopter was shining a spotlight from above, but there was no helicopter. Everything was perfectly silent but the ground under my feet seemed to vibrate. 

I stopped walking, frozen in place. It was an astonishing thing to witness. It’s difficult to describe what I saw step into the light. Who I saw. At first I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing. Because I saw myself. Healthy and glowing, a normal weight and a head full of hair. 

She—I—walked into the light and approached the rock carefully. She touched it and seemed to be feeling around for something. She found the crevice that Miss Lane told me to find. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, kissed it and inserted it into the rock. 

Only a minute or two had elapsed but it felt like an eternity that I watched this woman, me, walk into this bright light and do what I was supposed to do. Maybe I was seeing a vision of my future, fully recovered and leaving a note of thanks.

I continued to stand in the same spot. The other me seemed to be kneeling by the rock and praying. Words she had been told to absorb and make them truly her heart’s desire like Carolyn Beacon did. 

She stood up from her kneeling position then sat down on the ground. Then she wailed. It was the most mournful sound I’d ever heard. She hit the ground with her fists, which didn’t fit with my theory of what my future healthy self would do. Confusion set in. Maybe I was hallucinating. 

Just as suddenly as the light and my clone appeared, they disappeared. I continued to be frozen from shock. It took a few minutes to gather myself but eventually I was able to continue down the path toward the rock. I couldn’t allow a hallucination to deter me from what I needed to do. 

I used my iPhone flashlight to help me navigate to the rock. I looked for evidence of what I’d just seen. But I saw nothing. No footprints or flattened grass. 

I had a job to do that superseded everything, so I braced myself for the beam of light. It didn’t come so all I could do was carry on as if nothing bizarre had happened. 

I found the crevice, shined my flashlight inside and didn’t see anything coiling to bite me. I put my hand in to feel around a bit. Perhaps there was a little shelf or maybe a slot where I should put my note. Instead, I touched a piece of paper. Without thinking, I picked it up. 

There was no doubt that I was going to read it because I knew with all certainty when I saw it that this was the same paper I’d just seen myself leave in that rock. There was even the faint imprint of a lipstick kiss on the outside of the paper. I had to compose myself first and quiet the storm of crazy thoughts blasting my mind. How was any of this possible? And why was I seeing it?

I opened up the paper, which looked exactly like my own piece of paper. Same black ink and there was my handwriting. There was no mistaking that I had written this note but I had no idea when or why. 

I slowly unfolded it completely. On the paper, I had written these words: “Take this cancer from Lukas and give it to me.”

I fell to my knees, barely able to breathe. I had no recollection of writing this, no memory of my son ever being sick and certainly no idea that I’d ever been here. Yet I’d just seen some kind of Twilight Zone replay of me putting this note into the crevice of the rock. 

I hadn’t glimpsed my future. It was a look into my past, one I had no memory of. But if my prayer, my wish, my whatever had been granted, would I remember it? Were there rules that came into the picture in attempting to understand this? Nope, there were no rules. 

All I knew was that I saw myself put that note into the rock. I watched as the transparent me knelt and prayed as instructed by Miss Lane. And it was those six words that brought me to the full understanding of what I must do at that moment.

So I did. Just as I’d seen my earlier self do, in this my own private Gethsemane. I knelt down and put my hands on the rock and said aloud: Nevertheless, not my will, but yours. 

I stood and turned back toward the road and started walking away from the rock. Like Miss Lane had instructed, I didn’t look back. Wasn’t hard as I had no desire to. Everything was clear and crisp. I felt calm and peaceful. The only task I had to complete now was thank the perfectly not normal Miss Lane. I would not be telling her what I’d just seen because I knew she was fully aware. 

But I would write Lukas a letter for when he’s grown. I’d tell him to visit Miss Lane and listen to stories about me. I knew the ageless Miss Lane would still be there, providing help to those who asked. Then I hope he’ll walk down that path and feel some essence of my spirit, my love that’s forever tethered to that big, mysterious rock in Walker County.