Confessions of a Dying Woman: 4: Country Edition

Dear Miss Peggy, 

It is with a heavy heart that I write this letter to you. I am only writing to confess because I want my sin bill to go down before I go and meet my maker. Miss Peggy, it is no secret that I am the one who gave you the name ‘Beggy Beggy Peggy’. I know you do not like the name and you do not like me, but if you are honest with yourself and look deep deep down inside yourself, you will agree that the name is right for you.

  Miss Peggy, you are very nyammy nyammy  and very licky licky for a lady who act all high and mighty when she leave the likkle district and go amongst the people them who claim say them  a ‘high society people’.  It always seems to me like you always a time my pot, morning noon and night. As you reach you start to tell me how me pot smell good and would raise any dead. You always seem to show up at the right time when the food done cook or almost done cook. I find it rather convenient that you always want to come and offer me a word of prayer right at dinner time and, at breakfast time you always happen to be walking by and I come up in your spirit, and you decide to stop by to see how I am doing. Miss Peggy it’s like you walk with your belly on your farrid (forehead).

 I thought I was the only one who you terrorize with your long belly, but Miss Mavis and Miss Spinny say that it is the same thing you do them. Miss Spinny say sometimes you let loose her animal them to find an excuse to come visit her yard just as the food is almost ready. What is the matter with you miss Peggy?  You are a likkle Ginal to enuh. When you come to my house, you start talk bout how 

God is Good, and that He is a provider and how the Lord say that it is better to give than to receive and sharing is caring.

 

Every time I try to wait you out to see if you would leave so I can eat in peace, you start to sing your favorite song "When I think of the goodness of Jesus, and what He has done for me." When that song is done, if I do not get up to share the food you start reciting the Bible or pray with one of your eyes open.  You always wear me down so me haffi give you the likkle food, and as soon as you eat, that is the time that you remember that you have something to do before the rain come down or that you leave clothes on the line.

Miss Peggy, you need to stop them dirty behavior deh. You even go to funeral with the same long belly spirit, Bev saw you at Mass Isac funeral a throw out the six box-food that you collect in a big ole everlasting bowl and when she see you, you say that is the dog them (that you don’t have) that you carrying back the food for. Even with all that dirty bevaiour, you still feel the need to hype up yourself on us when you leave the district as if you better than us because your house is a little bigger with balcony and made from concrete and not board like the rest of us.

I am just writing to say that I am sorry, and not so much to confess. Do you remember that Sunday night, the first day of Crusade when you go up to give your testimony about how blessed you are? In that testimony, you talk about how God has provided for you, and you were able to have a bountiful dinner that night with pork and Oxtail. You talk about how he has blessed the heart of your son’s wife to give you the dress that you were wearing. 

I was not planning on opening my beak (mouth), even when Pastor James began to preach, get in a spirit and said that the Lord was speaking to him and telling him that there is a liar in the church. I just figured that it was Bev he was talking who claim that her husband is in farrin (foreign) when everybody know that Miss Mary, thief her husband from her.  Pastor continued him preaching and say that the church sister who is keeping the secret for the sister that is lying will get strike under a green tree.  I know I had to say something. I felt that Pastor James was talking to me because he kept looking in my direction, and that is why I got up and tell the truth.

I had to tell them that you did not have Oxtail and pork for dinner that night, but it was a common fowl that you beg Miss Spinny, that you cook. You could see Miss Spinny, shaking her head in the congregation to confirm that is true I was telling. You did not get the frock that you were wearing from your daughter-in-law, but it was one of your ‘high society’ friend them wear and left and I knew this because I saw her in the dress on two different occasions. One, when she came to the bake sale and another time when she came to Harvest at church. 

Furthermore, your son is in prison from scamming and that is the money that he used to build your big house on the hill with the balcony that you always brag and show off about. Your daughter-in-law is not in farrin, she lives in Tivoli and do hair on the street side in Downtown Kingston.

I did not mean for all your ‘high society’ friend them to stop talking to you and take back the frock.  Anyway, I am sorry, because at the end of the church service I found out that it wasn’t your secrets and lies that the pastor was talking about, but it was his own wife who was pregnant for his own brother and his wife sister was keeping it a secret.

From ever since that incident, you never speak one word of English to me, not even to tell me howdie do. Anyway, that don't bother me at all, because I don’t have to hide my pot under the bed from you, whenever I hear you coming anymore. Now that is off my chest. Have a good day Miss Peggy, and I hope to see you at my funeral.

Madge