“What that boy done was the furtherest thing I could imagine. Lawd, Lawd, this world and one more.”

The eighth decade of her life finds her living alone for the first time.  Her fourth husband uncomfortably settled into the home a few weeks ago.  She welcomes the solitude and the little things like tossing out the plastic sheet under the dining room chair. His chair, the one where he ate his last home cooked catfish dinner. That last supper flits into her awareness, a prickle of loss nags. Still, replacing the recliner, headrest stained with years of vitalis softens the sharp edges of regret.  Theirs was no great love affair. An odd companionship to stave off both loneliness and financial hardship. And yet – you don’t live with someone for two and twenty years without some attachment of heart, good and bad.

The quiet house calms her twitchy nerves. She can eat when and what she wants. The volume on the console television set just for her ears. Windows wide open, or a little heat on according to her needs only.  A few weeks into this new found contentment she notices the yard needs mowing. The last storm  brought down a few tree limbs and the water pipes are shaking the house down. Her years have not been easy. Born poor, early tangles with pneumonia, bronchitis, and lack of health care, left her attached to supplemental oxygen around the clock.

Help arrives in the healthy form of one rakishly handsome nephew straight out of back country Georgia.  Actually, a grand-nephew, the youngest grandson of her niece.  He is sweet and makes quick work of the chores. He eats like a half-starved colt. This makes her happy, feeding people is one of her joys, especially people who know how to keep food on fork from plate to mouth, no plastic sheets necessary.
He enjoys watching the afternoon stories with her (General Hospital, One Life to Live, and All My Children). He also laughs along with Hee Haw and The Carol Burnett Show.  He takes her fishing. He fills her portable Oxygen tanks.  The least she can do is encourage and fund the occasional night out with his friends. The once a week night out does not worry her, he is always home by sun up and never complains of being tired.  She never meets his friends.

Six months pass. The police come after dinner and arrest him.  He and his friends have accepted payment from a man. In return they will shoot his wife.  The wife lives, they are caught and the nephew is sentenced to 13 years in the penitentiary.

My grandmother called to tell me the news. “What that boy done, was the furtherist thing I could imagine. Lawd, Lawd, this world and one more,” she said in shock, disbelief and sorrow.  Soon after, my mother moved in with her. Her peace was gone, but the chores were done.

*”This world and one more,” a phrase I heard often growing up in Georgia. I can’t seem to find a lot about the origins of this idiom. When I heard it, it often referred to amazement or sorrow over a thing that had just happened. Sometimes, it could be used to refer to an oddity, such as a calf born with two heads.  I think it must have some relation to the idea of an afterlife. If we can’t understand this life, how will ever understand the mystery of the next life? A Google search reveals that a Jazz band out of Chicago recorded an album of nine songs, the album title is “This World and One More.” I do not know if any of the band members have southern origins but I do find confirmation that my southern grandmother was not the only one to say this.