Creative Nonfiction
Nora Lynn’s PhD
by Alana Anton
Someone asked me, “Why do you say you wouldn’t have a PhD without her?” I don’t know how to answer that without telling a hundred stories. A thousand moments of love, encouragement, and telling me what I would and would not accept in my life. I was born on her birthday, and after my mother, she was the most important and influential person in my world.
Hand in hand we walked to the library. Today was gonna be the best day. Because it was the summer I was five. And five meant my library card. I couldn’t wait to touch it. Manilla card stock with a little metal square that told the library ladies all the books I had ever checked out. It would have my name on it, not my grandmama’s name. My very own. I could now check out more than five books at a time, and since five would barely get me through a day, I was giddy. I felt so important. I could take a look, in a book…I could go anywhere.
I can only guess that it was from the moment I was born because my earliest memories of her are reading and telling me stories. When it was bathtime, she would act out Little Red Riding Hood and scare me as the Big Bad Wolf. I loved it so much, she used her incredible tailoring skills to make me a Little Red Riding Hood costume. My mama has it. Maybe one day I will be able to pass it on.
Once I was able, we walked to the library. Almost every day in the summer. I always, always, always stayed with her in the summer. When I was sick, every holiday, once on a weekend when I ran away from 1st grade, and sometimes…very rarely, I got to spend the night during a school week. Those were a little gift to us. She would stay up late reading to me or letting me read myself to sleep. And in the morning, she would make me my own lunch from her kitchen. Ham with Kraft cheese and mayonnaise because Papa drove an 18-wheeler for Kraft, so it was never any other brand.
It was cool to bring your lunch, most of us ate the cafeteria food, but some kids had lunch boxes with popular cartoons, or Barbies, or Matchbox cars. I didn’t have one of those. She kept brown bags for me, and every time she made my lunch she drew on them. Forest scenes of fairies, she loved fairies, with trees and vines and flowers. She would swipe my Papa’s sermon writing pens in blue, black, red, and green and create a little world for me on my lunch bag. I would give my rent money to have one back.
My favorite book was Eloise at the Plaza. Like Eloise, I was precocious, talkative, into trouble, and, I hope, quite cute and loveable. That time I ran away from school? I got bored, found a hole in the playground fence, convinced another girl to come with me, and took off. Headed to Grandmama’s house. I got about halfway there, too. As punishment, I was not allowed to head deeper into the mountains of Murphy, NC where we had a one-room cabin, for the weekend. I had to stay with her. My Mama sat us both down and, literally wagging her finger, she demanded I not be allowed any fun.
Nora Lynn promptly took me to the circus.
Papa was a circuit preacher. Hellfire and brimstone. Nora? She was a terrible First Lady. I heard she tried to do all the typical First Lady of the church duties at one of his posts, but the mean girls in the congregation bullied her. So, instead of dealing with any of that, she quit entirely. She had complicated views about god and the universe. She rarely discussed it, and when she did, would readily tell you she was agnostic. Her funeral was a Southern Baptist service through and through. Livid doesn’t really encompass how I felt about that.
She did sometimes come to church, Easter, and Christmas, but, the biggest day was Homecoming. We all dressed up in old-timey clothes and had dinner on the grounds. Little House on the Prairie had become one of my many literary obsessions and so, she made me a Laura Ingalls Wilder dress. Pantaloon, underskirt, dress, apron, even the bonnet. My book-driven world come to life.
Nora Lynn Copeland died on October 15, 2019.
I prepared my song to her. She loved George Michael. She was so full of, well, piss and vinegar. Would go wild at a concert like she was a 20 something who had too much to drink. When I got to the funeral home, the pastor seemed surprised that I would sing. That there would be music. For a woman who married and birthed and had grandchildren who are or were all musicians. He said that he had an hour and if I could fit it in, he would let me sing.
I almost took a swing.
I sang George Michael’s One More Try…and I made sure everyone there knew she was full of piss and vinegar, too, straight from the pulpit.
She taught me to read, she taught me what words could do. I wish she could see what she did. Where I am.
So, when I say she is the reason, these are just some of the ways she got me here.
Dr. Alana Anton is a queerbilly from the foothills of Northwest Georgia. Currently living in the mountains of Upstate South Carolina, she teaches sociology at North Carolina A&T University. Since graduating from Georgia State University, she is working on a book based on her dissertation research, uncovering the influence media has on the perception of Appalachia and her people.