This column first appeared in The Times and The News-Star September 1, 2018

Mrs. Peggy Bird was one of the most cheerful, unashamedly joyful people I’ve ever been around, and I’ve been lucky to have spent considerable time with some happy-go-lucky, every-day’s-a-picnic people.

Peggy Joyce Bird.

Until I read the obituary, I didn’t know her middle name was Joyce or if she liked it or not. Some people don’t like their middle names. (Hello, Teddy Vinson!) But Peggy Joyce fits. It sounds happy and light and fun.

She was SUCH a Peggy Joyce…

She passed away this week in her mid-80s, after an illness of about a year. The world is without one of its most genuine, want-nothing-in-return hearts. She was just good good good.

We met because I got fat. What a break.

I asked around: Who is an excellent seamstress in Ruston who can help a fat man by letting his britches out an inch or two? Preferably one who can cook so I can get fatter?

Somebody told me about Mrs. Peggy. It wasn’t Abbott meeting Costello, but it was in the same ballpark. If I’d have known that putting on a few pounds was a way to become friends with Mrs. Peggy, I’d have started years ago eating four fried pies a day.

She lived by the elementary school. I parked across the street and walked under her carport and saw her sewing in the room just off the kitchen. Sewing. Smiling. In her element. Prom dresses and whatnot hanging by curtain rods everywhere. I felt bad about knocking on the door. Like you’d feel bad about knocking on the door of Surgery Two when a heart transplant’s taking place.

But she didn’t mind the interruption. When she met me at the door, I thought I was at the family reunion. We had talked only on the phone — “Mrs. Peggy you don’t know me but I am all-of-a-sudden fat and …” — but she treated me as if I had grown up with her children and had been to her house hundreds of times.

She was not much bigger than a sewing needle. Always a smile. The lyrical, sing-song voice. Same with her laugh. Like music. I left her house with my clothes stitched, and with homemade bread or some cornbread or tomatoes or squash. One time, some cake. “I can’t eat all this,” she said.

One her grandsons was in my Sunday school class. Eighth and ninth-grade boys. Dylan. She was so proud of him. So she talked about Dylan, who was one of the pallbearers at her funeral. She didn’t talk about politics with me or the Cleveland Browns or anything sad. She just talked funny stuff. She made the moment funny. You are standing on a step-up in front of a mirror and she is pinning your pants and making you laugh.

A “punny” way to say it: she always left you in stitches.

In my closet is a sports jacket she gave me and a purple-and-black plaid shirt. They belonged to her late husband. She wanted me to have them. I said no. She said yes. I love them both. More than that, I love that she wanted me to have them.

I sent her guy customers and they immediately did everything but send me flowers. My phone would ring and here they’d go with the “I met Mrs. Peggy today!” thing. Then it got to be “I saw Mrs. Peggy today!” She was like that. She caused that sort of reaction. I’m sure some of the guys bought new pants that needed hemming just so they could See Mrs. Peggy.

I’m sad we won’t see her anymore now. Sad, but not worried. Whatever you sow/sew, you reap. She did both with grace and joy.

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