The Many Thoughts of Wanda Kidd

 My daughter and I have been doing the final clean out of the Jefferson Drive home my family moved into fifty-seven years ago, and it has been like an archaeological dig. It has taken an exceedingly long time because we have been distracted by the layers of memories captured in photographs and handwritten letters and notes.

Through it all, we kept finding notes written by one person that chronicled the lives of my sister, daughter, husband, who is her accountant, and me. As we read them, it was like finding a treasure trove depicting celebrations and mundane events that none of us had kept a record of, but we kept her notes. Miss Byrd, as we call her, did that for us.

Jane Sparrow Byrd (yes, that is her real name) has been and still is a presence one way or another for my whole life, and my extended family has been in her life for as long as she can remember, and that has been for almost a century. That is a lot of history, and I am so appreciative of her notes, many of which she painted herself, which are preserved to remind me of our connection.

I love how she still tells me how handsome my daddy was in his navy uniform when he came home on leave during “the war.” During a particularly hard time in high school, Miss Byrd asked me to help her with the sixth-grade girl’s mission group at church. That is when I began to know that working with youth about issues of faith was what I wanted to do with my life. I still remember those girls fondly, who are now in their sixties: Ursula, Cathy, and Leigh.

 When we sent our daughter to boarding school in Raleigh, she went to stay with my parents each weekend, and Miss Byrd was her Sunday School teacher. She is masterful in making people feel welcomed and included in any group, including the classroom where she taught high school math to my sister, me, and countless others for 30-plus years.  

My mother called Miss Byrd her best friend, but that is too small a classification of who she was and is to us. Words fail to express the importance of her presence during our family’s grief,   But she was courageous enough to let us share in her times of grief, as well.  I do not know what I would have done when my sister got sick, and I felt it was down to me who carried the family stories, but I was comforted that it was me and Miss Byrd.

So, as Bethany and I collected and reread those moments captured in time in those handwritten notes, I am so grateful for her willingness over the years to sit down, write, and send them to us.  Notes that wished both generations well in college and encouraged us during rough patches. Notes that reminded us of our talents and giftedness and just to let us know that she was thinking of us.  

I wish I had reciprocated and I guess I still could, but I am horrible at completing a written note. There are lovely people I have avoided making eye contact with since my wedding forty-five years ago because I was absolutely negligent in sending out warranted thank-you notes for thoughtful gifts given to Dan and me. I wrote them, and some I even teared up because of their friendship, but I could never get the address and stamp together and let them go into that abyss known as the mailbox. (reference blog on ADHD)

Maybe that is why I hold a note from Miss Byrd so dear. Each time I open my mailbox and find a note from Miss Byrd, or find a 4X6 envelope addressed to one of our family members in a stack or a box, written with carefully practiced cursive learned as a fourth grader in Orange County schools, I know it is written to make me or someone I love feel valued and cherished. I have met many other “Miss Byrd” type people along the way, and I know beyond measure that I am blessed, but Jane Sparrow Byrd holds the record as my non-related mentor and friend. I hope this brings some of your heroes to mind, and I hope you are a more proactive person than I am and will actually write them a note of thanks and appreciation.