Selma and Kathryn

 Kathryn Tucker Windham was one of my greatest all-time friends in the storytelling world and in life itself.  We worked together for well over thirty years until her death in 2011 at age 93.

 This beautiful photo by Tom Raymond was taken of us at one of Kathryn’s last appearances at the National Storytelling Festival.

Kathryn and I both grew up being taught that, before you get out of bed in the first day of each month, you yell “rabbit rabbit” for good luck during the coming month.  She even organized the Rabbit Club, a group of Selma ladies who had breakfast together in the first day of each month. We would check on one another later that day by telephone to be sure that we had fulfilled the superstition.

On our way from LaGrange to the Tejas Storytelling Festival, we pass through Selma.  So, on this trip, we decided to stop for a visit at Kathryn’s grave. In her lifetime she loved to visit and even have picnics in the old Live Oak Cemetery where there are amazing sculptures and markers.

However, she did not want to be buried there.  She thought it was too ornate for the simplicity of who she was.  When she died, she joined her husband, Amasa, and her daughter, Kitti, is the New Live Oak Cemetery just down the road a bit.

As Trish and I stood there and remembered so much about Kathryn, we thought about “rabbit rabbit.” Suddenly we noticed, there at the base of the headstone, a good sized scattering of rabbit pellets!  They must have been delivered to her in the first day of March!  We knew that all is well.