Before and After by Judy Christie & Lisa Wingate

Author:Judy Christie & Lisa Wingate
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2019-10-21T16:00:00+00:00

Lillian

“THE NOISE WAS ME,” SAYS Lillian Roberts, a lifelong Memphis resident. “I was in the crib. I was thirteen days old. My tongue was tied. I was covered with a crusty rash and crying weakly.”

Tiny, sick baby Lillian is saved from the clutches of Georgia Tann by compassionate adoptive parents who choose her over a healthy child.

She is gracious when she returns my call requesting an interview. “I am a Georgia Tann baby,” she says in her gentle Southern accent on my voicemail. “I’m seventy-one years old, and I’d be most delighted to speak with you.”

I call her back, and we set up a time to meet. Since she’s in Memphis and I’ll be heading there for the reunion, I schedule our interview for a day before others start arriving. She is quick to invite me to her home.

The sun is hot overhead, but Lillian’s street is shady when I pull my rental car into her driveway. My pre-reunion nerves have reached maximum potency with my arrival in Memphis. I’m suffering from a mix of anxiety at asking yet another stranger deeply personal questions and wondering if the weekend activities will come off in the spirit intended.

But seeing the ranch-style house, the front door open, and Lillian awaiting me, I relax. She could be the lady in the next pew at church or the mother of a friend. She makes me instantly at home, a warm hostess who answers questions with grace and soft-spoken candor.

Although she has not moved far from TCHS through the years, the abandoned baby matured into a smart, caring woman who uses her experiences to help others. She has centered her life on faith and family; two children, one adopted and one biological; and grandchildren who live close enough to use her babysitting services. The welcoming home she and her late husband built together has aged nicely, in a well-established neighborhood with oak trees that own the yards. She leads me through a hall and into a cozy den decorated with family photographs. A container of fragrant white gardenia blossoms highlights the coffee table. A gardenia bush was growing in a neighbor’s yard when Lillian was adopted. When she and her husband built their own home, they took a cutting and rooted it.

Like Lillian, it blooms still.

She is a retired advanced-math teacher who influenced many a student during her teaching years. A mastery of math is, after all, a valuable thing. Even in her retirement, she devotes her life to serving. She regularly uses her cooking skills to prepare food for others, such as two hundred fifty pigs in a blanket for an upcoming bridal shower and homemade orange cake for Vacation Bible School. She’s saved some of that cake for me and presents it with a pretty napkin and a china plate. She leads the homebound ministry for her church and escorts older friends on trips. She continues to help students with the ACT.

“I stay super busy,” she says as we get to know each other.

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