September

September may be my favorite month of all in Virginia. The days are still warm but the nights are getting cooler. Summer flowers are in their last blooming (zinnas and marigolds) but seem to be making an effort for an especially radiant exit. Chrysanthemums are just beginning to create an Autumn backdrop and the first leaves on the Sumac tree are turning red.

Maybe September is special for me because of two occasions in my life. First I think of Sally’s birth. I was teaching a piano lesson in my home when my water broke. The student’s Mother, who was watching Neel while I taught, took one look at me and said I’d better get to the hospital. David and I were in our first church appointment—just at the stage of breaking ground for the construction of the first building. David and a number of men were raking at the church site. I bundled Neel into the car and drove to get David. David now denys it, but I remember him saying, “Let me just finish this one section.” As a result we barely made it to the hospital on time. I was rushed into the operating room with no time for prepping or anesthesia. Sally arrived quickly and I was so delighted to have my little girl. She was beautiful with black hair (Neel had been a bald baby) and perfect little features. She was a quiet, sweet child from the beginning.

Mothers were kept in the hospital for a week at that time and Mother sent Rowena on the bus from Murfreesboro to take care of me and Sally when I came home. A memory I have of that time is a row of chrysanthemums in graduating shades of color outside my bedroom window—a blur of bright yellow, golden, tawny and brown.

The second special September occasion was Neel’s wedding on a September afternoon. It was another of those beautiful fall days. The wedding was held in the church we were then serving; Walker Chapel in Arlington, Va. The reception was held across the street at the Episcopal Church where Candace’s family were members. So many dear people came to the wedding: Jack and Audrey Flora and Mrs. Sweet from our first church in Roanoke, my dearest childhood friend Betty Ray from Murfreesboro, and of course Mother and Gloria and Frances (David’s sister). David performed the ceremony. All of our side of the aisle were crying because we thought they were too young. Neel was 22 and had just graduated from college. The couple were on their way to Germany the next day where Neel had a Fulbright scholarship for the year. It was a big, formal wedding with all of Candace’s sisters plus Sally as bridesmaids and an orchestra with dancing after the reception.

In my childhood September was always exciting as the beginning of the school year so I don’t remember September nature scenes. Maybe they were not as spectacular in Tennessee as here in Virginia. Now, I glory, not in just the cultivated flowers, but the wild ones along the roadside—golden rods, Queen Anne’s lace, wild grasses, cattails and myriads of unnamed yellow wild flowers.