Life Lessons on Prayer and Tuna Salad

It was largely at Nanner’s table as a child that I learned what is of worth to me now as an adult.  Nanner was my maternal grandmother, also my mentor, my guardian angel and my dearest childhood friend.  The lessons I learned were of love and life, forgiveness and repentance, hope and faith.  They were there for the taking among the frosty glasses of sweet tea, the creamy macaroni and cheese, the platters of crisp fried chicken and biscuits.   Sometimes I watched them played out before me like other children watched cartoons or Lassie.  Sometimes they just came forth in conversation between participants at the table.  And sometimes they were casually passed like the radishes and black-eyed peas and sweet cold slices of cantaloupe.  These were the life lessons that seemed to be doled out like an allowance might have been, but when seen, all in total, as an adult I recognize now they are a great inheritance.  I can’t help feeling it a privilege and an obligation to share them now with other people who were not as fortunate as I to have such a grandmother.  She was fond of reminding me “to whom much is given, much is required.”   So this recounting of her recipes for living (otherwise known as wisdom) and recipes for good food from my family’s table is my attempt at giving back from that with which I am so richly blessed.

Nanner was an ordinary person who lived in a most extraordinary way, always with great love.  She was always sure of who she was and therefore never effected by circumstances.  She was equally comfortable in plenty and in want ~ neither defined her as a person in any way, except to serve as a reminder that she was a child of God and He would supply all her needs.  Nanner and Jesus were (and most certainly still are) as close as two individuals could be.  Her love for Him was vast and evident to anyone who was with her more than five minutes.  So it is no wonder that I grew up knowing with a profound certainty that “Jesus loves me”.  Faith is a part of me, a gift in no small way due to Nanner.  Yet the gift was not so much the result of her regularly speaking to me about the Lord, but rather her speaking regularly to the Lord about me.

Prayer was one of those invaluable lessons I learned.  A lesson not confined to conversation with God or requests presented before Him, but also of loving and caring for other people and helping to shoulder their trials.  In a very comical and yet profound incident when I was a freshman in high school I saw first hand the power of prayer and caring for another person.  I learned a lesson about the fact that no request is too small or silly if it is done, as Nanner did everything, with faith and love.

Stella was our next door neighbor, a little Jewish lady in her eighties at the time of this  ‘prayer incident’.  She lived with her older sister Gertrude.  Neither of them had ever married and had always lived together.  They were school teachers in their younger days.  Gertrude had all of her wits about her, but Stella was different.  She was prone to visions of people who weren’t there and illusions of visits from people who were never going to be there.  She once phoned my mother to alert her that Mr. Gorbechev was coming from Russia to see her and we should all be on our best behavior.

This particular event combined both an illusion and a vision of sorts.  It was the middle of the night, about 3 am when Nanner awakened to a knocking on the front door.  She got up to go and investigate to find Stella and Gertrude in their bath robes standing on the porch.  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Ridgway, but my sister Stella is having some terrible difficulty and she insists that perhaps you can help her.  This is an awful hour to come knocking on anyone’s door, I  know, but this has been going on for hours and I am just desperate.”  Nanner invited them in and asked what the problem was.  “Well,” began Stella, “you see I can’t get any rest at all because I have this tuna fish on my toe.  He grabbed on to my toe some time ago and he just won’t release it,” explained Stella of her problem and the reason for the intrusion at such an hour.  About this time my grandfather, Papaw, wandered half asleep from the bedroom to see what in the devil was going on at that time of the night.  His reaction was what most people’s would have been.  “There is no tuna fish in this room much less on your toe!  You must have been dreaming.  So you can go on home now and we’ll all try and get some sleep.”  But Stella wasn’t buying his explanation.  The tuna was not only still on her toe but seemed to be growing and clamping down ever tighter.  The tension in the room was growing as well.  Quickly, Nanner called upstairs for my father and mother to come down.  I also awoke at this point and went along to see what all the hoo-haw was about.  There sat Stella moaning on the sofa, Gertrude next to her looking concerned and horribly embarrassed at the same time.  Papaw stood in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips, shaking his head in disbelief that now five people in our household were up in the middle of the night to deal with this ‘nut’ from next door who believed she had a tuna stuck on her big toe!  My father quickly assessed the situation and drawing on something he must have learned in Psychology 101 in college, proceeded to use an imaginary hatchet and chop the tuna off the big toe of Stella.  “There!”, he proclaimed, “the tuna is gone and we can all go back to bed now.  Get some sleep Stella, I’m sure you and Gertrude need your sleep.”

“You don’t even SEE the tuna and there is nothing in your hand so just what good are you to me?  You’re just pretending to get rid of the tuna so you can get rid of me.  I need help I tell you.”  It was then that the lesson of prayer and caring for another’s burden played out in front of me in that living room, no less powerfully than any of Shakespeare’s masterpieces might have on the stage at the Globe Theatre.  Nanner, taking control of this situation, turned to all of us and said calmly, “Let’s have a word of prayer, that’s what we need here.”  She instructed us all to kneel beside Stella and obediently we all complied.  She began to pray.  “Lord we need your help.  Our dear sister has a big problem.  Lord, it seems that a large tuna fish has grabbed a hold of Stella’s big toe.  She is in pain Lord and needs your help.  Please help her and make this tuna let go of Stella’s toe.  Thank you for caring about all our problems no matter what they are.  Amen.”

Gingerly, we began opening our eyes as she finished praying, not knowing what to expect next, and to my total amazement, Stella stood up.  “Thank you, Mrs. Ridgway, the tuna is gone, your prayers worked.  Let’s go home now Gertrude.”  Gertrude looking more amazed than any of us, and ever so grateful, thanked us and apologized again for the intrusion and, taking Stella’s arm, they left.

In the recounting of that story for years to come we have all had a good laugh at the memory of the room full of dazed and half sleeping people talking to a woman about a tuna being stuck to her big toe at 3 am.  It has brought some to tears with laughter and would be the sort of situation you might have expected the writers of “I Love Lucy” to come up with for Lucy’s neighbor Mrs. Trumbull.  But the real story isn’t the one we laugh about, it is the one that taught me a lesson of prayer and caring.  Nanner wasn’t humoring Stella when she prayed for her.  Tuna or no tuna visible to us, what was visible to Nanner was that Stella was in pain and needed help.  Her prayer for Stella was as earnest as it would have been had Stella appeared at our door with a tumor on her toe that was giving her terrible pain.  Stella knew that Nanner cared for her, and Nanner knew that Jesus cared about this confused and frightened dear Jewish lady.  She knew that if she asked Him for help, He would help.  I learned that sometimes prayer is more than just our communication with God, it is, at the same time, communication that speaks loudly to the person for whom the prayer is offered, that she is loved, and that her pain does not go unnoticed.  I learned that no request is too small or silly if it is offered in love.

Nanner’s tuna salad was, and is, a main staple at summer lunches and picnics for our family.  To this day invariably someone gathered at our table will say “Tell us the ‘tuna on the toe’ story again.”

Nanner’s Favorite Lunch

Tuna Salad
Bread and Saltine crackers
Slices of cold cantaloupe
Radishes
Olives
Wedges of Tomato
Sweet Tea

To make Nanner’s tuna salad:

1 can tuna, preferably packed in oil
3 green onions
2 stalks of celery
Best Foods or Hellman’s mayonnaise
Salt and pepper to taste
Dill, optional

Drain the tuna of all but about 1 teaspoon of the oil.  With a fork, break up the tuna in a bowl. Chop finely the green onion and celery, including the leaves from the celery stalks, and add all this to the tuna.  Mix well and add just enough mayonnaise to hold the mixture together.  Add dill if you like it.  Serve with Saltine crackers and bread slices for those who prefer traditional sandwiches.  Pass a plate of sliced cantaloupe, and one of radishes, olives, and tomato wedges sprinkled lightly with salt.   Serve with sweet tea.

Sweet Tea

Growing up in our home,  there was always a pitcher of sweet tea at every family lunch or dinner.

Boil water and pour it over 4-6 tea bags in a tea pot or sturdy pitcher that can handle boiling water.  Add about 1 cup of sugar and stir to dissolve.  Allow tea to steep for several minutes.  Pour into a pitcher (unless you started this process in the pitcher) and dilute with cold water and ice.  Taste.  If tea is too strong, divide into two pitchers and serve with more ice and orange slices or wedges, and sprigs of fresh mint. Sweet tea is known as the “house wine of the South”….and for good reason. There is nothing more refreshing than this, especially on a hot day.

Yes, prayers are always answered and Nanner’s tuna salad and sweet tea are always the best!