Charlotte

Fourteen years ago, I was assigned to befriend, on a monthly basis, an 82-year old widow who drank a lot of Pepsi in a smoky house full of cats. Her name was Charlotte Carson. This assignment came by way of a program within my church called Visiting Teaching, where women support other women. If you are a member of my church anywhere in this world you have, at minimum, a bishop and two women who know your name and therefore six eyes watching over you in fair and stormy weather.

I resented the pairing a bit. Other women my age were assigned to their neighbors or people in similar stages of life. I felt like I got neither, plus I had to drive across town to get to her. Still, I went. I went out of duty but not out of love. You could say I was doing the right thing for the wrong reason. Luckily, the Lord accepts even the phoniest of offerings when He knows their consistency will change hearts. Omniscience begets patience, I guess.

She was very hard of hearing. It took me a year to get used to yelling a conversation. I always sat on the sofa; she always sat in her mauve recliner with a cat glowering above her shoulder. Once, after screaming the obligatory, “Is there anything I can do for you?”, I added in a soft voice, “Like running over your cat on my way out?”. Her cat shrieked, sprang from its perch, and flew several feet across the room. At that point I knew cats understood English.

Eventually she couldn’t hear on the phone, so I couldn’t call to set up a visit. I’d drive over, barge through her unlocked door, and shake her shoulder until she woke up. Visits had to be a minimum of an hour, otherwise she was insulted. Month after month she’d talk and I’d listen, never about the recommended message. As I’d stand to signal my imminent departure, she’d lift herself out of her chair with difficulty to give a goodbye hug and growl right in my ear, “Oh, I love you. Thanks for coming.” I began feeling lighter, less out of place, and a smidge awestruck every time I left the tiny white house on Washington Avenue.

Time passed. I was faithful with my visits and little by little the obvious was made plain: she was one in a million. I loved her, and pure love slowly killed my immature and selfish behaviors. It also helped me overlook cat hair, repeated stories, and an extreme thermostat. I yelled with charity and started listening to her because I wanted to, not because I had to. Charlotte had 50+ years on me and was willing to answer anything I asked about. I scribbled her stories, punchlines ("I'm nuttier than a fruitcake"), and wisdom on the back of receipts or paint swatches—whatever paper my purse offered—and began piecing together the puzzle of her incredible life, the life she had before she was confined to a La-Z-Boy. It’s crazy what I could collect when I wasn’t watching the clock.

She had humble and happy beginnings on a 10-acre farm with 11 siblings (they slept four to a bed!). She never knew she was poor because everyone else was, too. She went to Lagoon as a toddler, swam in irrigation canals, and ate walnuts off the street until her face was black.

As a newlywed she rented a small room above Grant’s Emporium and shared the one bathroom per floor with every other tenant. She didn’t find this bothersome because indoor plumbing was super duper, and from sharing the bathroom she met a best friend. “I would have shared anything with Beth Hat.”

We compared hospital bills from our babies. She paid $20 to the doctor and $20 to the hospital for her firstborn—mine cost $7K—but Les only made a dollar a day. Babies seem to cost a month or two of income no matter when they are born. I couldn’t get out of the hospital fast enough but she stayed ten days and “wasn’t even allowed to stand up until day eight”. Her five gems were Steve, Lloyd, Donna, Marianne, and Evette.

She told tales about I-15 being built right through her back yard. We bonded over our mutual distaste for telemarketers and strong wind (she had the spruce that was twice as tall as her house cut down after losing sleep it would blow over and crush her in her bed). She was a member of the Secret Pal Club—which met quarterly for over 25 years—and encouraged me to stay in my monthly card-making club for just as long.

She was in a bowling league. Enough said.

I was awed at her strength when Les was sick, having to clear their dead sheep off the train tracks late one night and then haul them to Cedar Valley to be washed for the coyotes, and by the way she handled Les’ passing—him dying on a Thursday and her asking to get off work Friday. I think of her when I make chicken noodle soup because three days before Les died she made her famous soup for him. As she spoon-fed him, he said, “Charlotte, you could bottle this soup, sell it, and quit working.” That would lead to her telling me she wished she’d never worked, that she knew her family could have used her more, but that it wasn’t worth regretting since they couldn’t have made it without her. She confided she used to cuss Les out at his grave, mad he’d left her with so much weight to bear. But she bore it, and pressed on.

She toured England, the deep south, and the pacific northwest. She was the bride’s assistant in the Provo Temple and serving in the Timpanogos temple was the “pretty thrill of her life”.

After 26 years of holding the Utah State Training School together (modest to a tee, she’d say, “It was more luck than management—I just happened to love everyone I ever worked with”) she retired in 1987 and started making porcelain dolls and ornaments, a hobby that would endure until 2012 when her hands got too shaky to paint. She had an artist’s eye and an artist’s talent and combined the two with generous gifts. I have a prized box of Christmas ornaments she made me, one per year, that my boys are not allowed to even think about touching.

She loved American Fork, the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, and family traditions like watching the Steel Days Parade, summer reunions at Mirror Lake (with a “Country Store” that kids could buy one of her dolls at with tickets they earned from good behavior), Christmas bingo at the Senior Center, and backyard barbeques. Her yard was proof of Donna’s green thumb.

I saw her through knee surgeries, cancer, two car accidents, the death of two adult children, the births of great greats, and becoming totally homebound. She stood by me through infertility’s long span and on months I’d break down she’d give me squishy hugs while muttering in a low tone, “That was never my problem, but I’m sorry it’s yours.” With each of my boys’ births there was the triumphant first transfer from my arms to hers; she never lost her ability to hold a baby perfectly. Both of my boys grew to call her "Grandma Charlotte" and were happy to sit on her lap and kiss her. I should have expected nothing less from a woman who taught Sunbeams in her 70s. 

I raced to her house the day Will and Kate announced the royal baby’s name. “Charlotte! You won’t believe it! They’ve named her Charlotte! Do you know what that means? There are going to be thousands and thousands of Charlottes on this earth!” “Well,” she replied without the slightest crack of a facial expression, “I guess it’s been a pretty good name all these years.”

I captured her laugh on my phone so I could have it forever. We took selfies at the end of visits which I’d print and mail; they would be on the fridge the following visit. When she asked me to type her will I did, but I cried through the task wondering how I’d ever live without her.

On her 90^th birthday, I rented a golf cart and drove her through the manicured maze of Thanksgiving Point’s gardens for an hour. She never stopped clutching her chest from how beautiful it all was and confessed to winning the Steel Days Flower Show one year with a delphinium. After looping the property five times we came to an open field with nothing but running sprinklers in it. On a whim, I screamed, “Hang on, Charlotte!”, and into the forbidden grass I drove—possibly the most illegal thing I’ve ever done—while she howled and cackled as we got wet. We ended her celebration parked in front of the giant waterfalls with Pepsi and eclairs, her two requirements for celestial happiness.

Charlotte didn’t have much except for a handful of widow’s mites. She donated to any solicitation that landed in her mailbox, especially if it involved veterans. She sent crisp birthday bills to her sprawling posterity. She taught my little boys to go in her kitchen and open the goodie drawer full of fruit by the foot and M&Ms the second we arrived for a visit. She dreamt of new drapes and a bedspread from the Penney’s catalog but never bought them, choosing instead to stuff a $100 bill in my hands for a housewarming gift while she apologized she didn’t shop anymore.

She was very concerned Greg and I were building a home on the edge of a mountain. She did not mince words and reminded me about the wise man and the foolish man, begging me to keep some food storage upstairs “so I’d have something to eat that wasn’t buried after the earthquake”. I left tears all over American Fork when we moved, including her shoulder, but I vowed I wouldn’t abandon her, and I didn’t.

A week before Christmas I was the sole speaker at her funeral per her request. I was overwhelmed with doing her justice while doing right by her—she hated the spotlight—but decided these were the highlights of the many lessons she taught me:

WALK BESIDE YOUR HUSBAND

In the 1940s Charlotte would put her babies down to nap, walk out the front door, and speed walk to Main Street to buy groceries and run errands. Then she’d race home and hope the babies were still snoring. This seems ludicrous and awesome at the same time but everyone did it and no one was worried they’d go to jail. One night, Charlotte’s husband asked if she wanted to see a movie. Excited, they walked out the front door together. Once Charlotte got to the theater, Les was nowhere in sight. She waited and eventually returned home to find Les sitting in the living room. He said, “Charlotte, if you want to walk with me, then walk with me. Don’t walk ahead of me.” She was so used to speed walking she had just speed walked right to the movie.

After telling me this story, she said, “Now you listen to me. Marriage is a long walk, so don’t walk ahead of Greg but don’t walk behind him either. You walk by his side.” This was perfect advice to me as I’m a bit of a marital speed walker. Side note: Greg loved to quote National Treasure in Charlotte's behalf, frequently saying, "The secret lies with Charlotte." He has no idea how much he owes to Charlotte. ;)

BE CONTENT WHERE YOU’RE AT

Charlotte enjoyed her simple pleasures whether or not she was waiting for troubles to pass. She never missed her morning orange (she kept her thumbnail long for peeling it), her afternoon Pepsi (which she’d finish stale the next morning), or her nightly news (blasted on her tv's max volume). Neither optimist nor pessimist, Charlotte faced life head-on with pragmatic realism, yet her matter-of-fact conversation was never mistaken for meanness. “Come to dinner? With you and Greg? No, for heck’s sake. I don’t need to be anybody’s third wheel.”

Instead of mourning her loss of painting, she switched to colored pencils and adult coloring books and literally finished every square inch of dozens and dozens of books. She kept her pencils in the plastic container made for a sleeve of Ritz crackers and had the best manual pencil sharpener (she even gave me one for Christmas and it’s legit the best one I’ve ever used). Archer loved sharpening her pencils for her. Her endearing cheekbones were exceptional at grinning and bearing all things (except she couldn’t bear having cheekbones or olive skin—due to their combo she was often teased for “being an Indian” in school).

MAKE TIME FOR VISITORS

Once Charlotte admitted, “I know what it’s like to be the underdog, to be made fun of, to not have a chance.” This is why Charlotte gave everyone—humans, dogs, and cats—a chance. She insisted people feel included, welcome, and loved and did so with her perpetually open door. Charlotte never once gave me an excuse why I couldn’t come over. She always made me feel like my visit was the most important part of her day. We talk of converting others through “normal and natural” interactions; nothing seemed more normal or natural than pulling up a chair to nurse my baby in her kitchen while Charlotte’s daughter permed her hair. Girls gotta chat! (Marianne did Charlotte’s hair weekly for 50 years except for when she served a mission and broke her hand. The last time she did her mom’s hair was for her open casket viewing. What a special thing!) Charlotte taught me that letting people in has nothing to do with being ready for visitors.

GRATITUDE SOLVES ALL PROBLEMS

The last time I visited Charlotte in her home (before she moved to an assisted living facility) she was sitting in her recliner, bundled in socks and sweaters because she was so cold, her poor swollen legs wrapped tightly with layers of bandages. She had gotten a miniature portable fireplace and a revolving fiberoptic Christus statue for Christmas and was excited to show me both. I turned on the fireplace and sat it next to her feet. I turned on the ornament and watched her face as she watched it spin. She was so pleased, like a little child full of delight over the smallest thing. I was overcome at the sight, suddenly feeling quite sorry for her and what her life had boiled down to.

Here was a woman who had slowly lost everything: her husband, her siblings, her hearing, her independence, her physical comfort, her hobbies, even her chores (she loved making her bed first thing but stopped once she slept in her recliner). The Cadillac was sold long ago. All medical help came to her. She was truly stuck, limited to what the world showcased from her living room window. And in the midst of all this she said the most beautiful thing I hope I will never forget: “Can you believe I’m so lucky to have all this? Can you believe I’m so lucky for a kid who never had nothing.”

They say adversity shows your true core. Charlotte's was sparkly. There is a scripture I chose for Charlotte. The Lord, in talking about his people who endured suffering, chastening, and affliction, promises, “Yet I will own them, and they shall be mine in that day when I shall come to make up my jewels.” God’s crown just got beautified.

Charlotte never changed; she was a rare cut and precious jewel the length I knew her, and I like to think she took a little diamond in the rough under her wing because she knew it would be mutually beneficial. So the moral of the story is two-fold:

1. DO YOUR VISITING TEACHING, OR MINISTERING AS WE NOW CALL IT. I almost missed out on all of this. I almost rejected a role model and a lifetime friend because it wasn’t convenient or easy for me at first. Comfort zone schmomfort zone.
2. IF YOUR PARENTS ARE OLD, BUY THEM THE NICEST RECLINERS MONEY CAN BUY. I MEAN IT, DON’T SKIP ON A BELL OR A WHISTLE.

Me: “If you don’t let me read your life history I’ll make them serve Coke at your funeral.”

Charlotte: “Ohhhhh, you wouldn’t take my Pepsi away from me.”

Photo of the old Pepsi billboard at the entrance of Art Dye Park.

Thank you, Camille, for giving me Charlotte (and Charakie, the first of my three incredible companions). Kim, thank you for Shelleen (the only person on earth with a laugh rivaling Charlotte's). Jen, thank you for Loni (who discovered she was related to Charlotte!).

When I was packing up our old house, I came across my stacks of "Charlotte papers" and wondered what to do with them. I tried to toss them and felt sick, so I retrieved them and put them in a box. After she passed and I found out she asked me to speak at her funeral my first thought was, "Where did I put those Charlotte papers?" (My memory is good, but not that good.) I tore through my secretary desk and came up empty. I said a prayer that I could find them and immediately saw an image of my leather file folder I use for blog ideas in my head. I went to my folder and jackpot. Now I know why I needed them. Sometimes I do things right.