A CONVERSATION WITH GEORGIA
By; Gerald A. Polley

While Linda was listening to one of her talk shows one night, they asked if anybody recognized a woman. I didn't. But the description reminded me of someone else. Just before I met Linda I was working for a college and there was a young colored man that worked there named James, very nice person, hard working. But one of the other workers always made fun of him, and it irritated me. One day James mentioned he had to move some stuff and he wished he had somebody to help him. I said "Sure! I'll lend you a hand if you can drop me off at my house afterwards." He agreed and I called my mother and told her not to pick me up. We went to where James was picking up the stuff and loaded it in his station wagon. Then we took it to his house and unloaded it. "Come on in!" James encouraged. "Meet my mother! She can't go out, so she likes to have people come in."
He led me into a bedroom where a woman was propped up in a bed. "I'm glad you got back, dear!" the woman said.
"Sarah had to go to work, and she doesn't like me here alone. I tell her you two worry too much. Who's this?"
James introduced me and explained that I'd helped him move the things. "Oh, bless you!" the woman praised.
"James works so hard, two jobs, then cares for me half the night. But these two younguns are determined I'm not going into some home somewhere, that when I die at least one of them will be with me. God has blessed me with wonderful children!"
"I most certainly agree!" I answered.
"James!" his mother asked, "Is this the same one that you said people laugh at because he talks to the dead?"
"Yes!" James answered.
Now, people shouldn't do that!" the woman answered. "I've never had the power, but my mother did, and, my sister did. They saw things many times."
"That's very odd!" I commented, "That your sister had the abilities but you didn't! Doesn't usually do that. When the abilities manifest in a family several people usually have them."
"Tell me what you believe Heaven is like," the woman asked.
I told her how beautiful The Afterlife was, how it as all perfection for those that loved one another, and rather nasty for those that hated. I told her how I was going to classes and learning to use my abilities.
"I think you'll use them greatly!" the woman remarked.
"I'm sorry, mother," James put in, "but I gotta get him home and get back and fix your supper."
"Well, I'm very glad you came in!" his mother remarked. "God bless you, dear! Georgia will put in a good word for you when she sees Him!"
I smiled and answered "I need all the good words I can get!"
James took me home. That was pretty near to the end of the season, and I worked on a farm that summer. When I got back to the college I saw James and asked him how his mother was.
"She's delivering that praise to God she promised," he answered. "She died in her sleep with my sister and I sitting on either side of the bed. My sister's planning on going to college."
"Well, make it The University Of Maine," I told him, "not here!"
James smiled. "My sentiments exactly!" he answered.
I'll always remember that dear woman and her two children. They are the kind of people I will always admire! They didn't just abandon their mother when things got difficult, they stayed with her as long as she needed them. There aren't too many people with character like that any more!

THE END

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