So we have this woman who cleans and generally looks after our house in West Virginia. (I know, don’t even get me started on the PBW of that.) She comes in before and after we leave and keeps the place in better shape than we do.
And she is one of a kind. In all ways.
She is a watch dog for every man, woman, deer or UPS truck that steps foot on the property or darkens the door there. We met through the former owners and it was love at first sight. For me, at least, it was.
The interview went something like this:
Me: So how did you get into this line for work–care taking, house cleaning?
Trina: Well, I was carin’ for my mother-in-law and she died.
Me: Oh, I am so sorry.
Trina: Oh, don’t be. It was time. I’d been wipin’ her butt for fifteen years for free. Figured now it was time I got paid for hard work.
Can’t argue with that sort of pragmatism, I thought. She was hired on the spot.
Trina started working with us practically the next day and when I am there alone, she talks. We talk.
She climbed out her bedroom “winder” at sixteen to cross the border to Virginia where marrying her twenty-one-year-old Dean was legal. Thirty years and three kids later, both their eyes twinkle when they are in one another’s presence. He gets up at 3:30 every morning to mine the coal he has for thirty five years and she gets up with him to make his coffee, serve him breakfast and pack his lunch.
Her married name is Trina Lilly Lilly. “There are too many Lillys ’round here so I just divide them between the good ones and the bad. Dean’s family was one of the bad Lillys, except for him ‘course. We are definitely not relations.”
He has a hand-engraved tatoo inside his left wrist that is a simple crooked inky” TL.” They are a great American love story.
But I digress.
The real stories are the ones that Trina tells as she is carrying out a trash bag or helping me change a bed. She usually starts with, “Did I tell you about…” and it will entail some wild tale about her sister, Toots, or her other one who is “on the check,” Sharon, or some lady from the church she used to attend. Her doctor visits are always good ones. She had a pin put in her left foot and when she woke up she told the doc, “That were the worst screwin’ I ever had. ” She swears he smiled behind his surgical mask.
My son thinks she should have a spot on David Letterman. He can picture him saying, “And now it’s time for our segment called Let’s Talk to Trina,” as he picks up his cream-colored corded phone. And Letterman should. Hearing her tell a story is as good as the story itself. She could read the phone book and make you laugh.
Full of horse sense and good humor, her perspective on all matters is honest and direct and uncluttered by pretense.
So today she called with a good one, as she says.
Trina: Did I tell you about our friend who died? The egg guy?
Me: No, you told me about the guy who died on an ATM.
Trina: Now, Nancy, you know I meant ATV (all-terrain vehicle). Was funny, wasn’t it? I suppose if you got held up at an ATM you could die that way, though.
Me: You have a point.
Trina: So anyway, there’s this real good man we know, just the nicest kind. Joe Smoot. He’s sold eggs ’round here for years. Well, the obits two days ago says he had died.
Me: That’s too bad.
Trina: Well, I know but the puzzlin’ part is, I’ve been searchin’ the paper everyday for the details. You know, of the service, his wife’s family name, the survived by names and all that. And everyday–nothin’. And as I said, I really liked the guy. He was popular with alot of folks. And I wanted to show my respects. So finally after three days of nothin’, I called Rose and Quesenberry, the funeral home, myself.
Me: What did you find out?
Trina: Well, a lady answered and I asked what were the particulars of the Joe Smoot funeral. And she said, “It weren’t the egg guy. And there ain’t no funeral.” And I says, “What?” And she said, “Yup, thars another Joe Smoot and he’s the one that’s dead. The egg guy even called me yesterday to see if we could handle this confusion and I just told him. We are busy enough dealin’ with the deceased to worry about him bein’ alive.” And then she said the livin’ Joe Smoot said it was turnin’ into a terrible mess.
Me: A mess?
Trina: That’s what I said, “What mess? ” And the lady said, ” Yeah, the egg guy, Joe Smoot, said, ‘Can’t we do anything about this mix up? My front porch is a pilin’ up with food and flowers all over the place and I have no idea what to do with them!'” I told the lady he oughtent just send them to the funeral home for the dead Joe Smoot since no one seemed to care about him and all. But the lady didn’t take to that.
Me: So did you call the alive Joe Smoot ?
Trina: Now, why would I do that? I don’t need no eggs.