Let the Weak Say

I woke up sick.

The colitis from June keeps coming back, then almost clearing up, then coming back again. I was afraid to make an appointment with the GI until I was sure we had another year of insurance, and I haven’t gotten the official letter yet. Besides, Serendipity was still up on the jack being repaired. I wasn’t sure when, exactly, we would be mobile to get to appointments again. I was avoiding spices and NSAIDs and eating yogurt to grow my healthy gut bacteria, hoping it would go away. But it surged up, swelling my stomach like the pregnancy I’ve begged God for a hundred times. I was so sensitive that when Adrienne bounced onto the bed to greet me it felt like I’d been punched in the stomach, and then I had to dash to the bathroom.

Next I found out that the landlord had deposited the rent, which meant we were overdrawn by quite a bit. Never mind; we’d find a way to make it up over the weekend. Being sick can’t last forever. I’d get some more writing work. Anything to make up for the mess that the summer has been.

Shortly after that, I found out that Serendipity would not be drivable again.

Jimmy tried cleaning out the catalytic converter, but there was nothing in the catalytic converter. He was out of ideas about what could be making her shake. It might be the motor or the whole engine needed replacing, and he couldn’t do that without a whole mechanic’s garage to do it in. It was time to give up. He could help us list it in the local sales groups for two thousand dollars and then go to a car auction to find us a clunker that would run before long.

I was sick again, and not from colitis.

Two twelve-year-old Nissans in three years. They were both junk. I don’t know a thing about cars. I didn’t get my license until I was 36. I don’t even know how to change the oil. Of course, the used car dealerships ate me alive. What did I expect?

For the hundredth time since the car broke down in June, I wished I could go swimming. I’m autistic. I need my stims. Every season has a stim proper to it. In fall I go on long drives and hikes to look at the leaves. In winter I find a way to get to the museum and stare at the brushstrokes of Monet paintings close up. In spring I go on wildflower hikes and find streams to stand in until I feel numb. In summer, I go to pools around the valley if I have four dollars for admission, or to the lake if I don’t, and swim laps while I think about things. That’s how I feel well. That’s what I got used to doing since I got the car in 2021. Now I can’t have it, and I’m frantic.

I felt as if I was dying, and maybe that wouldn’t be bad.

I stumbled out to the garden, where a groundhog had taken a ripe tomato and smashed it once more.

I imagined myself at the complaint department. You know, the one in my mind. I suppose everyone has an internal complaint department. Mine looks like a small office with a green chalkboard against the far wall, and a desk inside, and Jesus sitting at the desk. Sometimes His mother is there too. I unfolded my paperwork in front of him. You know, the internal paperwork with everything I was taught to believe and expect written down like a contract.  I explained that I had been a very good girl who saved sex for marriage, closed my eyes at the racy scenes in movies, and dressed ridiculously modestly. I was led to believe that that would lead to either a convent, a glorious martyrdom, or the wholesome life of a stereotype that wasn’t called a Tradwife at the time. And yet here I was with only one child to show for it, too poor to move out of Appalachia, with no ride to church for going on five weeks, in a tumbledown rental house with no energy to cook lavish meals even if we had the grocery budget. Furthermore, I’d been told that if you dedicate yourself to Christ instead of to Mammon without reservation, God would provide for you, but his rations had been lean. I was feeling cheated.

I told him that my life had finally begun to be good just before my thirty-ninth birthday. I’d had only a few more petitions and I’d be perfectly happy. Just a little more freelance writing work and a few more books and a few more subscribers so I’d have enough to live on. Just for the Biden student debt forgiveness for runaway interest and economic hardship to happen as he planned, just before God sent the new writing work so I wouldn’t owe IDR payments. Just to get a few more friends  so I’m not so lonely. That was all. And then he took away the good health I’d only had recently with a surprise new illness. And he took away  the car I desperately needed with little hope of a reliable replacement. That wasn’t fair. Surely he’d made a mistake. Surely this punishment was supposed to go to somebody else.

I reminded him of when I was a Charismatic, before I realized the Charismatic Renewal was a cult, and when I was in a Faith Household which was more of the same. The way I used to sing “And now, let the weak say I am strong! Let the poor say I am rich! Because of what the Lord has done for us! Give thanks!”

I didn’t feel like giving thanks.

There was no answer.

No answer at all, not until Saturday.

Jimmy was at the door again, late Saturday morning. His buddy who owns a garage and sells used cars would be by on Monday to buy his old jeep, and Jimmy had told him about our predicament.  When he came, Jimmy would bring him over here to listen to Serendipity’s shake. It could be that he’d know exactly what was wrong and could take it to the garage to fix it and maybe we could crowdfund the repair somehow. Or it could be that the repair would be too expensive for us, but he’d offer to swap one of his old cars for  Serendipity so he could fix Serendipity up to sell. Jimmy would be there to make sure the car was a good one. If that fell through, Jimmy also knew two other dealers downtown– not in a casual way, but in a closer-than-brothers Appalachian way. He’d known the dealer at such-and-such since he was this tall. Bought a car for his mother there last year. They all had repair shops and they all took old  cars like this as a trade from time to time.

I realized that with Jimmy with me as a talisman, I wouldn’t get swindled. There is honor among Appalachian mechanics. In the meanwhile, this weekend, he’d give us rides on our errands.

“Thank you so much!”

“Oh it’s nothing after what yunz did for me,” he said, meaning that stretch where we let him drive Serendipity everywhere when he was rebuilding his own wreck of a car in the fall. But I thought that that was paying him back for fixing the car the first time it broke down in the first place. In fact, our families have been helping each other out and swapping favors since Adrienne used to go play video games with his stepson and he would mow our lawn without knocking to ask first. Back when the stalking neighbor lived in the haunted house next door. Back when I felt trapped.

Again, that odd feeling: that I’m stranded in Appalachia with no hope of escape, and I like it, and if I was able to leave I don’t think I would.

And now let the weak say “I am strong.”

Because there are friends.