Thank you, Miss Lee

Before I begin, let me warn regular readers (I'm not a regular poster, lately, so I'm not sure you can be a regular reader) that this has nothing to do with missions or my overseas life, which are the general topics of this blog. Instead, this is inspired by the news yesterday that Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird (TKAM), is publishing a new book for the first time in 55 years. And while I have opinions and concerns about the new book, Go Set a Watchman, and I'm genuinely nervous about its publication, this is really more about TKAM and the way it has intertwined with my own life. It's a thank you note to Miss Lee from someone who deeply loves her book.

Of course, many of you know that I have spent much of my adult life as an English teacher, which means I've taught TKAM too many times to count. I've watched children (you may be taller than I, but if you're in my class, you're still a child) who loved no other books love this one. One of my favorite teaching stories--all teachers have teaching stories, of beloved students, difficult students, funny colleagues--is from early in my career, when I taught in a small county in central Georgia. The district office had passed a rule that we could not ask students to buy books, because it was a terribly poor county, and parents simply didn't have the money to buy luxuries like books. I was teaching tenth grade, and I had 30 kids per class and about 20 copies of TKAM--and no budget to buy any more. So my wonderful husband put my favorite rocker in his pickup truck, drove it to the school, and placed it in my room. For the next week or so, students brought in blankets and pillows, sat on my floor, and I sat in the rocker and read TKAM to them aloud. When we got to the part of the book in which Scout finds out that Tom Robinson is dead, a gross injustice, one student cried out, "Oh, dear God, NO!" There were distinct sniffles from big old country boys whose shotguns were in their trucks because they hunted before school every day. (Remember--this was pre-Columbine and security measures it inspired.) Black, white, hispanic--it did not matter. I saw firsthand the power of that book to make students look at each other differently. From then on, I made sure to teach it whenever possible.

It is a book my own children love. Sarah Beth, in particular, has always treasured the book. It might be because her Daddy told her that Momma wanted to name her Scout after the main character. It might be because she was raised in the South. One of her treasures from her time overseas was a copy of the book she found in a Kiev flea market, published in the late 1960s in Kiev, which of course was part of the CCCP at the time. Even yesterday, she was excited/nervous about its publication, and said one of the things I loved the most in our discussion of the new book on my facebook page: One day, there will be a whole new set of people. But Scout will always be there. She will always be dressed up like a ham. Forever. Clearly, I have done something right as a mother. :)

But really, my love affair with this book is its impact on my own life. My aunt reminded me yesterday that, though we want to see Miss Lee as Scout, she herself has said that she is really Boo, the reclusive, silent protector of the children. While Miss Lee might not see herself as Scout, I certainly see myself as Scout and always have. Having grown up with very Southern parents and being from a very Southern family, I saw so much in this book that I understood from my own experiences. I knew what the small-town South looked like, smelled like, sounded like. I understood the crazy cast of characters that inhabits every Southern town. The overalls, playing ridiculous games, wandering the neighborhood, being told to respect my elders...these were all things I understood and knew deeply. But it was in Scout's love and adoration for her father, Atticus, that I most identified with this fictional character. 

I spent every summer in my hometown of Clarksville, Tennessee, with my beloved grandparents. My grandfather, John Matthews, was a man deeply respected in his community. I thought he was just another man with apple and peach orchards until I was about 10, when I discovered that "Mr. John" had been a beloved teacher, principal, and superintendent of schools. I was in college when I discovered that my darling Papa had been the superintendent during segregation, and had given deep respect and love to the black students as he did the white students. (On a historical note, my mother attended Wilma Rudolph's basketball games as a child, because she went with her father, who was superintendent at the time. If you don't know who Wilma Rudolph is, please look her up.) And while all these things were amazing to me, especially as someone who became an educator, it was his treatment of all people who came to pick up apples and peaches during those childhood summers, his respect and sense of value for everyone, regardless of race or the ability to pay...it was this legacy that made me proudest.  That he raised children in the heart of the South without prejudice and with love and respect for all people...nothing short of miraculous. 

And, of course, there is my own father. His life is a tale of hard work, discipline, and being the hands and feet of Jesus in the marketplace. He has commanded respect in business and church circles my whole life, but to me, he was just Daddy. As I grew older, and I began to know and understand the things that were non-negotiables in his life--an incredible sense of ethics and morals that were intertwined with his love of business and played out in practical ways every day--I made it my goal to also be that kind of person: willing to do the right things even when they are the hard things. I saw him make choices again and again that were for the good of others--those who worked under him or his family or his church--and often, those choices were not the popular and certainly not the easiest ones. My Daddy and my Papa: they are and were Atticus. I know what it is to be Scout--to love and be loved by remarkable, upstanding men, to stand with others because my "Daddy is passing." (Yes, my favorite line of the entire book. I cried typing it.) Yes, it is this above all else that makes me love TKAM.

It is no secret that I love books. And I love many books with which I don't identify--because of their craft, their nuance, the stories they tell. But this book reminds me how proud I am of my much-loved  father and grandfather, of being from the South and all that entails and means to me personally, of those things my parents worked so hard to instill in us--love of God, of family, of others. Non-negotiables. Absolute truth in an age when many believe it doesn't exist. So thank you, Miss Lee, for this incredible book that has so touched my life and millions and millions of others. No matter what this new book has for us, TKAM has created  a world in which we can remember what it is to climb into someone else's shoes and walk around in them for a while. That there's really only one kind of folks. Folks. And that, dear lady, is a joy and a privilege. Thank you.