Verily

/ Fran Haley

On Day Two of the Slice of Life Story Challenge, I had a lot of fun playing with backwards names (You, reversed).

Today I am thinking about family names and the legends or lore surrounding them.

My mother had a unique name. My Grannie named her after her sister, Verlee. When I was little, Mama explained her name to me: It’s from the Bible. From the word “verily.”

Verily is an archaic English translation of several different Hebrew and Greek words throughout the scriptures. It means truly or certainly.

Grannie had six children by the time she was twenty-two, during the Great Depression. My mother was the last. They had a hard, hard life. I only know bits and pieces of their story; most of those who lived it are gone now. They experienced a lot of loss. A baby boy, Thomas, coming a year before my mother, died when he was a few days old. Grannie spoke of him to me when I was a child: I felt so empty, coming home without him. She never forgot him.

Mama said that when she was born Grannie brought her home from the hospital in a basket.

These images have lived in my head for years and years.

Quite some time ago, I started crafting a story about a family…not my mother’s, but with a few borrowings. I have a long version (incomplete) and a short story version. Every once in a while I go back and tinker with the tale , to see what the characters are up to…

Since the word came to mind today, I’ll share a little excerpt.

From my short story entitled “Verily, Verily”

One afternoon, when we was playing school on Grandma’s porch, a long black car that looked like it ought to belong to the mill owners pulled up.

Out stepped Mama.

At first I hardly knowed her. She didn’t look much like herself. Pure skinny for one thing, her legs just little bitty bird’s legs beneath the dress that the ladies’ sewing circle made and carried to the hospital for her. Her face, all sharp edges. Her eyes had changed the most. Huge, wild, like some hunted creature was looking out of Mama’s eyes.

When she seen us up on the porch, she tried to smile, but them too-big eyes filled with tears. “Well, girls – ain’t you even going to come hug your Mama’s neck and see what I brung you?”

Me and Artie May flew down the steps to throw our arms around her. Mama felt like paper and twigs, like a good breeze would carry her rattling away. She couldn’t hug us back very much because of the basket over her arm. Whatever she had in there was covered up with blankets.

“What is it, Mama? What’d you bring us?” shouted Artie, jumping up and down, trying to see inside the basket.

“Goodness, Artie May,” said Mama, “you don’t mean you’re just happy to see me on account of the surprise, are you?”

I felt happy to see Mama but I wanted to know what was in that basket, too. Just then, I seen something move under the blanket.

“Mama, you got a puppy in there!” I hollered.

Mama smiled then but her eyes didn’t smile with her. “No, Ollie Fay, it ain’t a puppy. It’s better than that. Come see.”

She kneeled in the yard. Artie May and me crowded close. Mama didn’t even smell like herself no more; she smelled like the inside of medicine bottles and new cotton cloth. I wondered what on earth could be better than a puppy, except maybe two puppies, as Mama pulled back the blankets.

Artie went Ohhhhhh and I ain’t never been more shocked in my life, to see a baby asleep in that basket. It had a round pink head with a little bit of dark fuzz for hair.

Mama said, “Girls, this here’s your little sister.”

Me and Artie just stared and stared before Artie finally asked, “What’s her name, Mama?”

“Well, I wanted to name her something from the Bible. I thought on it a long time and decided to call her Verilee.“

Now, I knowed something of Mary, Martha, Ruth, and Hannah, but I ain’t never heared of no Verilee in the Bible before. Artie must of been thinking the same thing, because she asked, “Who was Verilee in the Bible, Mama? What did she do?”

I guessed, on account of the basket: “She was Baby Moses’s sister.

Mama shook her head. “No, Ollie Fay. That was Miriam. There won’t nobody named Verilee in the Bible. I took it from something Jesus said: ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life.’”

Then Mama’s mouth started wobbling.

Grandma spoke from the porch: “Rose.” We got so caught up with the baby none of us even knowed she’d come out. She stood there with her arms crossed over her bosom. “That’s it, Rose. He’s gone and you know there ain’t no suffering where he is. Call the child whatever you want, she’s a sign that life goes on. We can only pray it ain’t always going to be so everlasting hard. Get in the house, girls, your supper’s on the table.”

Hmmmmm.

Maybe it’s time to tinker some more? Hammer out the many kinks and let these characters get on with their lives?

Verily, I say to y’all… that might be a whole lot of story.

My Grannie holding my mother, 1941.

*******
Composed for Day 5 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers

A thought: Dialect is often discouraged in writing because it’s hard do to well and can be challenging for readers. But sometimes that’s how the story wants to tell itself.

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13 thoughts on “Verily”

  1. Oh my gosh, Fran! Your short story is really great! I just love the voice that comes through. This is simply wonderful writing! Oh, and did you get the name for your blog from “I only know bits and pieces of their story”?

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    • I so appreciate your words, Aggie! My blog title, Lit Bits and Pieces, came from not wanting to write only about educational topics – I wanted the freedom to write about whatever I wanted (hence the subtitle, Snippets of Learning and Life). Yet… I typically write more about my father’s side of the family as I know so much and was very close to them. I only have “bits and pieces” of my mother’s side, but I believe what I have of the stories is worth retelling, even if by fictional characters, which is probably best in this case, anyway.

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    • I’ve always loved the story of my mother’s name; it is one of the things I hold to now, as the real narrative didn’t turn out so well. The characters in the story bear little resemblance to anyone in my family, honestly…I don’t know a lot of real details plus it’s easier to write about fictional folks than real in some cases. Thank you so much for your words, my friend.

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  3. Fran, I do love regional dialect. It’s one of the reasons Clyde Edgerton, a NC author probably somewhere near you, is one of my favorite. Raney is my favorite book of his, but Walking Across Egypt may be the most popular book of his fans. There is something that gives a clean time and passport stamp to the where and when of story with dialect as rich as yours. You won’t believe it, but my mother’s name was Miriam. One of my Grannies had 16 children, and the other had 9. I think of the stories of those kids in those hard times living in a shoebox and making lye soap in a big pot in the back yard. One of the boys got a toe chopped off by an ax when they were cutting wood to keep them warm. It was sure a different day back then – – a day of hard times and Biblical names and too many babies and not enough food for every mouth. And dirt roads. Always, always dirt roads. This is a lovely slice, and I always enjoy seeing your pictures of ancestors. 

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    • Kim, I so appreciate your response to the story, and especially the dialect – it’s so strong in my head that I cannot imagine writing it any other way. This brings additional struggles with the writing, though – requires a lot of extra hammering. Edgerton – yes, I believe he’s still at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, as head of their fantastic Creative Writing program. These memories you retell here – I could read of them forever, in complete awe of the people who kept going in the face of such odds. I feel the need to say that my characters are not meant to embody my Grannie, my my mother, or anyone from the family in particular – they are their own selves, having come to life when the character of Ollie Fay first sprang, fully-formed, in my head, with this voice that never leaves. Shades of my family story float through their lives…fiction born of reality, and that gives me so much more freedom. Again – thank you for being such a mighty wellspring of encouragement and inspiration!

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    • I am so glad you think these things, Joanne…this story has been pulling at me of late, after having rested for many a year. Maybe it is time to dive back into it…even if a big part of me resists and wants to run away for the sake of self-preservation! It will take a lot.

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  5. I’m with Kim. I love the dialect in your story, and my guess is, it’s making a return to literature now that we’re starting to recognize (hopefully!) that differences in language make us richer.

    And WOW. what a powerful story, powerfully told. The imagery you give of Mama, how her tiny inflections or facial expressions reveal her world…honestly, though?

    I’m not sure this story is all told out. I wouldn’t be surprised it it comes, lightly stepping up to your porch, tentatively knocking at your door, asking to sit and spend more time together.

    At least, I’m hoping so!

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    • I so appreciate these thoughts, Lainie. Your keen observation skills have picked up on something amiss in the character of “Mama” (Rose). Bottom line – she’s enduring intense suffering. For the record: These characters do not and are not meant to embody my grandmother or mother, they are their own selves…there are just shades of real story in the fiction, for isn’t that where the best fiction is born?? Someday I’ll tell the story of how the narrator-protagonist, Ollie Fay, sprang to mind, bringing her own family in tow. For now I am standing here – still standing here, for years upon years – at this precipice, wondering: Is this story worth the plunge of continuing?? Do I have it in me? But it pulls at me…hard…

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  6. Oh, Fran, you’ve worked your magic with words yet again! Love the dialect and the story. I can relate to this, because my mum’s mum came from the US and married my grandfather (a captain in the Royal Navy) in England and then she and her third baby died in childbirth back in the 1920s. My other grandmother died when I was a baby, so I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have a grandma. My other grandfather died in a train crash when my dad was sixteen, so he had to leave school and go to work (as the youngest of four). Life was so very different back then! I love the name Verily, I’m sure it’s unique!

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  7. The dialect does the story justice, to be sure; I don’t think the emotion and historical placement would have worked without it. Now I want to know why Mama is so thin, so soon after giving birth. Oh, the suspense!

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