Dawn's Notes
Then I Remembered E. P. McKee - August 2018
by Dawn Phelps, RN/LMSW
It was a hot summer day in Columbia, Tennessee, the town of my birth. Just to roll the window down on the car let in a blast of hot air like a furnace had been turned up to 95 degrees!
The year was 1983. I had graduated from nursing school that spring and was weary from studying. For some time, our family of four had looked forward to a trip to Tennessee and some other southern states, beginning in Columbia.
I also wanted to get reacquainted with some of my relatives in Tennessee, particularly my Uncle Jones, a gentle unmarried man bursting at the seams with musical talent. (To hear him play “Darktown Strutter’s Ball” on the piano was a real treat.)
I knew that Uncle Jones had lived at a boarding house in Columbia for many years, and I thought I had a general idea where the boarding house was located. After some driving up and down streets, we realized we were lost and needed help.
When my husband Ralph headed the car into the driveway of a very small house to turn around, there was an older gentleman sitting on the porch. Before we could back out of his driveway, the gentleman got up from his seat and made his way toward our car.
My husband asked the man if there was a boarding house in the neighborhood. The man knew where the boarding house was located and gave us precise directions. But before we went on our way, the man asked, “Would you like a drink of water?”
We gently tried to decline his offer, but he quickly headed toward his house and went inside. He soon returned with two glasses of water complete with ice cubes. (The water was offered in glasses that jelly had been sold in. If you are older, you may have drunk from such glasses while growing up.)
He handed the two glasses to us in the car, turned around, and proceeded back into his house again. He returned with two more glasses of ice water. Mmmm, mmmm! What a wonderful treat on such a stifling hot day!
We were taken aback with such gracious hospitality—true southern hospitality. We finished our water and thanked him more than once. Before leaving, I asked him, “What is your name?”
And he replied, “E. P. McKee.” I liked the sound of his name—E. P. McKee.
Due to Mr. McKee’s directions, we did find my Uncle Jones and visited with him. But the memory that stands out most vividly was Mr. E. P. McKee’s simple act of kindness that cost him only a few ice cubes, a little water, and his energy and time.
I had almost forgotten his name and his act of kindness until September, 2010, when Tom and I were in Texas. It was another blistering hot summer day in another southern state.
Not only did the heat remind me of that stifling day in Tennessee in 1983, but the Texans we came in contact with reminded me of the friendliness and hospitality of the people of Tennessee—their slower southern speech, their polite “Yes, Ma’ams” and “Yes, Sirs.”
It was then that I remembered E. P. McKee and those glasses of ice cold water on a hot day in Tennessee. Twenty-seven years later, the memory of the cold water and E. P. McKee’s kindness was suddenly crystal clear in my mind.
More than likely Mr. McKee, by then, had met his Maker, for he was an older man when we met him in 1983. Yet the memory of his example of kindness remained.
There are so many kindnesses we can do for others around us—simple kindnesses that can mean the world to someone in need or someone who is hurting. Look around, and you will find a person who might need something as simple as a cold glass of water and a friendly face.
The Bible says that we if give a cup of water “in my name” it is as “unto Him.” E. P. McKee willingly gave four glasses of ice cold water to four thirsty Kansans in 1983, a reminder of the importance of passing along “a cup of water.” Yes, I still remember E. P. McKee and his kind gesture, now 35 years later!
Call about the next "Living Life after Loss" Group at:
Meadowlark Hospice 709 Liberty Clay Center, Kansas
(785) 632-2225
Dawn Phelps, RN/LMSW, Group Facilitator