Prissy Elrod - Far Outside the Ordinary

FAR OUTSIDE

the

ORDINARY

A MEMOIR

Prissy Elrod

Copyright 2015 by Prissy Elrod

SECOND PAPERBACK EDITION

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data To Come

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Beaufort Books

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New York, NY 10011

Published in the United States by Beaufort Books

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Distributed by Midpoint Trade Books

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Printed in the United States of America

Interior design by Jennifer Zaczek

Cover design by Katie Campbell

Paperback: 9780825307836

Ebook: 9780825307133

For

Dale, who inspires me every day

~

for

Garrett and Sara Britton,

my beautiful daughters and greatest accomplishment

~

for

Britton, Kenley, Raynes, Allie Boone, and Whit, who light up my life

~

for

Sylvia LeBlanc Landrum, my mother,

and Mazelle Patterson, who raised me

~

and for

Jonathan Daniel Boone Kuersteiner,

whose memory lives on in the lines of this memoir

The caterpillar dies so the butterfly could be born. And, yet, the caterpillar lives in the butterfly and they are but one.

Unknown

Literary Disclaimer

Everyone has their own perspective, and what you read in this book is told from mine and may differ from another. I kept a personal journal during all of these events and returned to those pages when writing this memoir. I have changed some of the names but not all of them. Also, I have attempted to preserve anonymity by altering some identifying details in certain cases.

Prologue

The distinguished man of color standing on my front porch was a sight to behold. Debonair and slim, he was a conspicuous presence. He wore a fitted silk suit. A point of pink handkerchief peaked from his jacket pocket, matching the bright pink socks that crested above his black, pointed shoes. This gentleman was the very model of cultivated elegance and charm, looking as if he had been created in Hollywood.

Somehow my tragicomedy of a story had drifted from my little panhandle town in Florida all the way west to the coast of California, where he lived. Mary Barley, my friend and personal trainer, told a friend, and that friend told this man, who now wanted to meet me. He wanted to hear the firsthand version directly from me.

Mary came along with him, and after formal introductions, we all sat on my pink chintz couches. I was distracted by his socks, which matched the color of my couches perfectly.

I write for a television series called Dawsons Creek, he told me. Perhaps youve seen it.

I hadnt and told him. Television hadnt been on my radar for some time.

He continued. My position, as one of their creative writers, is to create stories and story lines. Your story intrigued me. Id sure like to hear more about it.

It was difficult to summarize the dramatic, unimaginable, and often unbelievable events that swirled around my attempt to save my dying husband after I moved two colorful, compassionate, black caregivers into my home. There had been a constant competition between tragedy and comedy, but I found myself relaxing as I spoke to this writer. It felt good, and I was astonished to discover I could tell someonea stranger, no lessabout those dark days.

As I began to wind down my narrative, I could sense what was coming next.

Would you consider selling your story? I think it needs to be told, Mr. Dawsons Creek said. You tell it, well write it, you get paid.

Before he even asked, I knew my answer would be no. What I said, however, was, Thank you so much for the offer. Ill get back to you.

Of course, I never did get back to him. I was afraid those I cared about might be exploited in some way. I would have no control over their reputations. Even as a bruised magnolia from the South, I cared deeply for those who cared for me.

And so, I chose to tell my own story in my own way, thirteen years after the gentleman with the wonderful pink socks came to town. The why was so simple. In the words of Carl Hiaasen, one of my favorite Florida authors, You just cant make this stuff up. Mr. Dawsons Creek was right. My story really did need to be told.

PART ONE

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you its going to be a butterfly.

R. Buckminster Fuller

CHAPTER ONE

Angel of Death

It was some time after November 8 but before Thanksgiving. I know this because November 8 was Boones fifty-first birthday, and I was still trying to save him. By Thanksgiving, I knew I couldnt.

The references listed for the man who was to meet me were outstanding, including names I recognized: most impressive, the late governor of Florida, LeRoy Collins, whom hed cared for. This man had been described personally by the late governors daughter, Mary Call, as one of twenty-eight brothers and sisters. He was said to be a gentle, kind, nurturing being.

He had schooled himself in the counsel of pain and suffering and the process of grief and bereavement. I would say he had a masters, if not his PhD, in the field of comforting and caring for others.

Wearing nicely pressed navy dress pants, shiny black shoes, and a starched white shirt, he looked as though he was interviewing for an office job rather than savior to a lost soul who was caregiver to a losing soul. His skin was marked with scars and the color of black tar. I studied his eyes, oval in shape, large and chocolate brown, the whites blemished with small red capillaries, glistening as though moisture was being blinked away. Are they tears? I wondered.

My names Cornelius, Cornelius Duhart. You can call me Du. I can help if you let me.

He knew why he was summoned and waited with quiet patience for me to speak. I remained silent. We watched each other across the room, my Southern manners absent.

Tears streamed down my face, and I began to cry. He rose from his chair and walked over and sat close. His large black arms reached out and wrapped around me. Though we were strangers, this black man held and rocked me, a fragile, scared, once fearless white woman, going through an experience so few would, or could, understand. I had yet to speak a single word.

So it went the day we met. He became known to my daughters and me as Duhart, later just Du. I was Christy, though he knew my real name was Prissy. From that day on, I saw the world differently. Sometimes seemingly unanswered prayers are answered, only in an unexpected way. The Angel of Death took residence in our home.

CHAPTER TWO

I Dont Recall

If you want something bad enough, there is always a way to get it. At least that was what I always thought, until that something became unattainable.

The day everything started, I was enjoying the smell of pot roast drifting downstairs from the kitchen to the room where I worked. Tired of the same old thing, I had tried a new recipe I found in Southern Living the day before.