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Reaping and Sowing
Early
November. Downtown, Chicago, Illinois. The Year 2001.
Marion Kennedy is an
African-American, middle-aged, God-Believing woman working at an
insurance company in downtown Chicago.
She worked for Illinois Bell for thirty-three years and retired.
But being at home bored her to death, so she decided to re-enter
the work force a month ago. She
now processes health insurance claim forms which are not too hard to do.
Just enough to keep her busy and to put a little money into her
wallet. Marion is divorced
from her husband, Charlie, whom she was married to for the thirty-three
years she was at Illinois Bell. Marion
has been on her own for three years.
As much as she enjoyed raising her only child, Lydia, and being a
wife and mother, she also enjoys her freedom now.
Her marriage to Charlie wasn’t bad or violent.
They just fell out of love with each other.
Marion likes her new job.
She is the oldest person on her team, but the young people she
works with have the utmost respect for her.
Known around the office as “Mrs. Marion,” they often come to
her with their personal problems and questions.
Marion believes this is because she is a woman who loves the
Lord, and she isn’t judgmental about the mistakes these young ones
tell her they have made. They
also see her as a “mother figure” because some of them didn’t have
one growing up.
Marion’s boss is a young
man by the name of Mike Sanders. White,
single, and in his late twenties, he is a decent boss, but a jacked up
human being. He has an
arrogance about him that Marion finds quite unappealing.
Marion’s cubicle is decorated with Biblical passages and art
work from the children she teaches in her Junior Sunday School class.
When Mike sees that Marion has her religious banners and pictures
hanging around her cubicle, he puts up satanic pictures and banners.
“The devil is my god” and “I love hell” is what hangs
around Mike’s desk, which is diagonal from Marion.
When people stop by his desk, Mike says out loud about how much
he enjoys the way his desk looks and didn’t they like his
“artwork.”
Marion tells Lydia about what
is going on at work and Lydia suggests that she bashes him upside his
head with the Bible and cuss him out.
Marion graciously tells Lydia that she doesn’t think that would
be the thing to do. Marion
also tells her daughter about her co-workers and how she is like their
surrogate mother. Lydia asks
her mother how she has time to work when she is talking to “her
children” all day long. Marion
picks up on Lydia’s little green monster and calls her out on it.
She tells her daughter that if she would spend more time with her
mother than with her career as a system analyst for Deloitte and Touche,
then maybe she could use her mothering instincts on her own daughter and
not people who aren’t related to her.
Lydia says no more about it.
The young people know what
Mike is doing is upsetting to Marion and they are right.
She knows that Mike is doing this just to be obstinate and trying
to goad her into saying something to him about it.
The reason being that before Marion was hired, according to
Marion’s “children” who worked there, he didn’t have anything on
his desk. Not one picture,
banner, nothing. They ask
her constantly about what she is going to do, but Marion simply replies,
“Nothing. God will take
care of it. Mark my word.”
Weeks pass and winter turns
to spring. Marion still is
enjoying her job and interacting with her “children” and praying for
her supervisor, Mike. They each still have banners and pictures up on
their respective cubicles and Mike continues to jeer at Marion, but
because Marion doesn’t respond to him, he doesn’t know what else to
do to get a response out of her. Marion
believes, and some of the young people have said, that Mike is jealous
of Marion and the way that the people on the team come to her so easily.
Marion tells them that this isn’t her problem, but Mike’s.
Plus, he hasn’t been on this earth as long as she has, so he
needs to earn his stripes first.
One Friday morning, Mike’s phone rings.
Marion can hear Mike answering it and then he goes silent.
A few minutes later, Mike tells the team leader, Sandra, that he
needs to leave right away to go to Cook County Hospital. His mother had
a heart attack while walking home from Walgreen’s on Addison Avenue in
Lincoln Park. They need Mike to hurry because it doesn’t look good for
her. Marion says a prayer
for Mike after he leaves.
Monday morning, Marion is told that Mike will be out for the day.
Marion asks Sandra if she had heard anything about Mike’s
mother. She says that his
mother is stabilized, but her heart is weak because of her age and years
of smoking. The office gets
a get well card and a bouquet of flowers for Mike’s mother and
everyone signs the card. Marion
surprises some people by signing it, but she tells them that if she had
her way, she would tell Mike that he is getting exactly what he
deserves. But God’s way is
to pray for him and his mother, who has nothing to do with the way Mike
acts towards her.
Mike comes back to work on Thursday.
He is obviously quite sad about what has happen to his mother.
Marion notices that he keeps passing by her desk looking at her
like he wants to say something. Finally
Mike comes to Marion and asks if he could talk to her.
She follows him into a conference room.
Mike and Marion both take a seat and Mike looks at Marion and
asks her if she could pray with him.
Mike starts to cry which quickly turns into sobs.
He says that he is scared because his mother is seriously ill and
she is the only family that he has.
Mike tells Marion that he is sorry for the way he has treated her
and that he knows he doesn’t have a right to ask her anything, much
less to pray with him. Marion
tells him that he is right, but her life is not hers, but God’s and
there is no way she could refuse him.
She leaves and comes back with a few co-workers, and there in the
conference room, they form a prayer circle.
They each take turns praying to God for Mike and his mother.
Mike continues to sob even to the point of falling on his knees.
Marion continues to hold his hand and pray. After they are
finished, Mike stays in the conference room by himself with his head
down on the table.
The next day when Marion
arrives at work, she notices that Mike’s banners and pictures are
gone. People right away
start approaching her asking her if she sees his desk.
Marion just smiles and says she does.
When they ask what she thinks of it, she says that God is good
and his mercy endures forever. She says nothing more and continues to
work. At Mike’s desk, when people asks him what happened to his
banners and pictures, Marion hears him saying that he doesn’t like
them anymore and they where crowding his desk.
He says nothing more and continues to work.
At lunchtime, Marion’s phone rings and surprisingly it is Lydia
calling her to take her out to lunch.
Marion takes the elevator to the lobby and there is Lydia waiting
for her. Linking arms with
her daughter, Marion asks Lydia to tell her something good.
Lydia tells her that since she asked, she is going to do just
that and proceeds to tell her about her day.
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