Ina Judith Langford

 

I was nine years old when "Aunt Ina" died. She was only forty-two. But few people have marked my life so deeply. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer when she was thirty-four years young and given six months to live. But like a lot of Langfords, she was a fighter with an almost immeasurable amount of grit. She also had a faith in God that was overwhelming. Six months became eight less than pleasant years. She was a beautiful, broken, and in may ways tragic woman, and I'm so grateful that I got the chance for her to touch my life.

I can remember her sitting at the table with Grandmom, Mom, and me. I must have been all of five, yet I can still hear that deep voice as mahogany sounding as the color of her hair. She had one of those toothy smiles that models covet, and a tiny black mole to the right of her grin, the sort that people in the fifties paid good money to physicians to create for them. Her's was a glamorous birthright that for some reason appeared later in her life. She was lovely and mysterious to me, forever surrounded by a blue haze from the cigarettes she kept close at hand. I was being raised a good Baptist youngin.' The Baptists assured me that ladies didn't cuss or chew, drink or smoke that evil weed. I never heard or saw her do the first three evil acts. I did see her smoke. But in spite of my moral education, I new at some deep level that she wasn't going to bust hell wide open over the cigarettes. And I would have taken on the whole Southern Baptist Convention if they tried to say otherwise. Quite simply, I loved her, and "many waters can not quench love."

She died in Indianapolis, Indiana. We were there with her at her apartment the weekend before she died. On Saturday night, I sat on the couch beside her plastered so close to her that it must have been painful for her in her frail condition. She didn't seem to mind, just wrapped her skinny arm around me to pull me closer to her. At some point in the evening, she asked her husband, Uncle Phil, to go to the bedroom and bring her "that little New Testament." He retrieved it for her, and she placed it in my hands. She said it was the one they had given her at Cook County Hospital in Chicago when her condition was first diagnosed. She told me she wanted me to have it "just because." It was a ragged and cheap version of that good book, but I held on to it like it was a leather bound treasure.

On Sunday morning, it was all too apparent that she had to be hospitalized. She and Uncle Phil lived in a second floor apartment in an old building with a central staircase that opened right into her apartment. I don't know how I knew that this was the last time I would see her alive. I just did. At the top of those stairs, Uncle Phil asked her if she wanted him to carry her down. "No, indeed, I do not!" So with Uncle Phil on one side and Grandmom on the other, she started down the stairs. The rest of us hung on to the railing watching her leave. We were a mess. We should have been as brave as she, but there were tears that wouldn't be stopped. Aunt Ina took two steps down then stopped. She looked at the place she was leaving, but more importantly she made a point to make eye contact with each one of us for what seemed like forever. I'll never forget her final words when finally she spoke.

Now, you all stop this nonsense. Stop it right now. I will never be far from any of you. Never!

With that she started her journey down. I saw eighty pounds of raw faith and courage navigate those stairs that day. It was one of those "defining moments" in my young life. The following Tuesday, she died.

Wherever life took me in the following years, Ina Judith's New Testament followed. Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois. When I returned to Kentucky from Illinois, I couldn't find it anywhere. Somehow the Bible had been lost, and I felt almost as if I had lost her yet again.

In 1978, I found myself ready to graduate from Jefferson Community College in Louisville, Kentucky. I was a single mom with an eight year old daughter to feed and not many prospects without furthering my education. I did well in school, maybe to prove something to myself, maybe just because I loved school. I had two more difficult years of school ahead, but I was at the half-way mark. I was invited to attend an awards ceremony at the college. I received a much needed scholarship to further my education at Spalding University. It was a good day.

After the ceremony, I returned alone to my apartment and stopped to get the mail before entering. There was a manila envelope waiting for me from a friend in Illinois. I opened the thing, reached in and pulled out my friend's letter first. It went something like this: "Shiron, this is the strangest thing! This came to me in the mail with no return address. I couldn't even read the postmark. I think it's your Aunt's Bible." With those words, I upended the envelope and Ina Judith's Testament fell into my hand. For a moment I did not breathe, and in that moment I realized a special truth. This Testament came to me on the very day of my awards ceremony, which was the anniversary of her death so many years before. Once again I heard those words, "I will never be far from you. Never." I could almost hear her say, "Way to go, Shi! Good job!"

Do I consider this a story of things that go bump in the night? Not at all. But it was a precious coincidence, a reminder of the brave woman who faced worse odds than I was facing then. When things get rough in my life, I often haul out that worn little book and remember her. It gives me the courage to square my own shoulders, lift my head, and start down my own set of stairs however long they may be. Ina Judith was a Langford. So am I. As far as I'm concerned, that's a blessing, indeed!

 -- Shiron Wordsworth

(this story was first published in The Meridan Magazine. The version posted here was obtained from Shiron Wordsworth)