Stay For Lunch

A Story of Faith and Friendship

EXCERPTS 

Try A Bite…

FRANCINA KENNEDY...a name, a person, an angel on earth.

A dear, dear friend.  My story about my friendship with Francina can begin at the beginning; because there was a specific beginning to our friendship...there was life before Francina and life after Francina.  Has any one touched me more?  Very few as much, or as gently, so profoundly.

I will always remember my first glimpse of Francina...it happened during a very pensive morning drive, through an old Atlanta neighborhood while my head was full of endings in my life--the recent death of my grandmother, an unplanned pregnancy ending in  miscarriage---I literally forced myself out of bed to try to make it to my office by 10:00 a.m.  

As I lethargically rode the curve around the Ansley Country Club, I watched as if in slow motion, an accident occur--two cars collided.  The three cars ahead of me ignored the plight blocking most of the road and drove on by.  Somewhere in my self-pitying haze I heard the voice of Mr. Swanson., Mr. Drivers Ed, speak “if you witness an accident you must stop, you must render aid”.  

I stopped my car and hesitantly approached the car that had been broadsided.  A whisper of a figure bent over the wheel.  I opened the door and was greeted by a tiny,  lovely, snow-white haired woman.  She smiled at me as if I had just arrived for tea and busily reached for a yellow legal pad next to her seat.  It was then that I noticed the bone sticking out of her left shin. 

“My name is Francina Kennedy, and I wonder if you could do something for me” she responded, as I asked her what hospital she would prefer the ambulance to come from and whether I could notify family for her.  “The first thing you must do for me is this”... She handed me the yellow notepad with her instructions.

I rushed into the house of a concerned, helpful woman who had joined the scene.  As I looked down at the pad, I called a woman named Viola and found myself saying “Francina Kennedy will not be able to make BRIDGE this morning, she is terribly sorry but she has had a slight accident.”. 

Francina and I held hands the first four hours of our friendship. 

Son and daughter-in-law were not to be found and after a frustrating conversation with a Spanish-only speaking housekeeper about a tennis club somewhere in greater Atlanta, I returned to Francina and grabbed her hand.We didn’t let go for a long time.  As we waited in the emergency room, Francina sighed and squeezed, “I’m so disappointed...I’m afraid that this will change everything and I’ve been doing so well”.  I learned that this eighty-six year old woman, who recently moved from the tiny town of Griffin, Georgia to be closer to family,  had purchased a condo in a golf community (just minutes away from my office I discovered) in the middle of Atlanta, and loved it. 

Sort of Mary Tyler Moore all grown up.

Her composure and strength floored me---the only sign of her physical discomfort came in a few beads of perspiration on the top of her lip and the growing paleness of her skin against her white hair and cream-colored dickey which she chose to keep on.  Although she fretted about “ruining everything” she also paid attention to me and drew out my melancholy. 

I don’t remember all that we shared but it was intimate and genuine, as was every conversation I’ve since shared with Francina.   A mutual trust formed immediately. 

As the hours passed in typical Emergency Room slow motion, we awaited news from Francina’s family (I distinctly remember hoping it was a good one who appreciated the jewel they had in Francina).  After moving for a third time to a different compact space, my tending to Francina was interrupted by a  concerned, thoroughly Southern female voice exclaiming “Namawwww, what on earth happened, are you alllrightt?” and a burst of post tennis energy entered the room in the form of Nancy, Francina’s daughter-in-law.   

I was so relieved to discover that Francina was someone’s cherished Namaw.  I dropped her hand, moved to the side and said  my farewell.  Did I mention that Francina and I discovered that we were reading the same novel?  I left the hospital, my head full of Francina, and my heart inexplicably lighter than it had been in a long time. 

“Anne dear, please help yourself to another sandwich”....my eyes coveted the platter of Francina’s crustless delicacies.  The moment I walked into her home, I felt embraced by nostalgia and familiar things.  I could have been visiting Nanny, my own grandmother with her lifetime collection of lovely pieces, colors and photographs of a large, playful family poised in every spare space. 

Francina called and invited me to her house when she  returned home from her hospital stay;  we had communicated by notes and phone during her confinement after surgery.  “I have something I must give you for being such an angel to me, please come for lunch.” 

What a lovely tradition that became...lunch with Francina. 

She presented me with a white butcher-paper wrapped present and declared she didn’t know what the “propah present would be to thank me for what I had done.” 

So she decided on a beef tenderloin. We both laughed.

another taste?

“Anne, dear, it’s so wonderful to have you here. I must admit something very strange is happening with me. I think I might be experiencing a slight depression. Have you ever heard of anything so silly? I just don’t understand it.”

“Francina,” I replied as I sat back in the dining room chair, instantly putting aside thoughts of getting back to the office any time soon, “you have pneumonia. Of course you are depressed. You deserve to be. Pneumonia is tough to beat and it takes a long time to get back to 100 percent.”

“Do you really think so sweetie? I have felt so unlike myself”. “As you should, you are sick,” I said. “You need to give yourself a break. It’s OK to feel blue.”

Of course what stunned me was that even though the puff had been taken out of Francina’s sail, she sat at the head of her dining room table looking perfectly lovely, as always. She pondered what I had said briefly and then began to sparkle a tiny bit as she remarked, “I guess you’re right. I feel better already just knowing that I’m supposed to feel bad. Thank you.” It was at that moment I realized Francina looked to our friendship for support and guidance as much as I did.

Fifty-odd years between us and we were girlfriends, helping each other along our respective paths.

HAVE A LISTEN