Life's Litmus Lozenges

     Kate DiCamillo is one of my favorite children's authors.  She wrote a book called Because of Winn Dixie.  If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.  One key element in the book is the "Litmus Lozenge," a type of hard candy invented by a Civil War veteran who decided that the world was a sorry affair and that it had enough ugly things in it.  He was going to concentrate on putting something sweet in that upside-down world.  He found a way to mix the sweetness and sorrow. It's described as having a "melancholy" taste.  This veteran found a way to survive after losing everything he loved. 
     "I ate my Litmus Lozenge slow.  It tasted good.  It tasted like root beer and strawberry and something else I didn't have a name for, something that made me feel kind of sad."  said Opal India Buloni, the main character of the book.  You may wonder where I'm trying to go.  Let me continue.
     When I read this book, and finally saw the movie, the talk of the Litmus Lozenge didn't mean much to me.  I knew of happy things and I knew of sad things, but a piece of candy had never made me sad.
     Two Saturdays ago, I was driving the girls somewhere.  The Halloween candy had already been snuck into, and as I drove, I unwrapped one of those mini Paydays.  I've never been a huge fan of peanuts on my candy bars, but as I've gotten older, I suppose the area where salty meets sweet has gotten smaller and smaller to the point where they overlap from time to time.   I opened the plastic and took a bite - being careful not to scatter the salty peanuts as I bit into the bar.  Something weird happened at that moment.
     As I chewed, this feeling of sorrow washed over me.  The salty peanuts mixed with the sweetness of the caramel brought me back to a time that I can never get back.  It brought me back to the age of innocence... when I was a child.  I had a newspaper route and I would haul newspapers seven days a week.  I delivered to neighbors and to friends.
     William Montgomery Vaughn was a customer on my route.  He was a grouchy curmudgeon.  Nothing I could say or do was ever good enough.  I always delivered the newspaper the wrong way.  If the phone rang when I was done with my route, I knew it was him calling, and I knew that I had failed him, yet again!  Oh, how I used to cringe when he called!
     His usual M.O. consisted of using a clothes pin to "pin" a note or his payment to his mailbox.  He kept the conversation to a minimum and would only have a sign that read "Sue, please ring bell" if I had done something "wrong".  One Halloween, there was one such "Sue, please ring bell" notes on the mailbox.  I sighed rather loudly.
     I slowly rolled my eyes around in my head, reached up and rang the bell and exhaled slowly and loudly.  I waited.  I could hear him shouting that he was "coming!  I'M Coming.  I'll BE RIGHT THERE... don't leave!"  Duh!  Where was I going?  I'd have to wait for him.  If I didn't, his phone call would make it home before I did, and my mother would turn me right around and send me immediately back.
     The door opened just a crack and he thrust a small box of chocolates with a bright, orange envelope taped to it.  "GO ON!  Get out of here now.  Stop looking at me like that.  Good bye!" and with that he quickly shut the door.  I stood there kind of dumbfounded and surely not quite sure of what had just happened.  It was Halloween and he had taken the time to get me a theater style box of Fifth Avenue bars and a Halloween card.  He had signed the card WV, which was his signature closure.  I smiled as I walked away.  He really did care.  He just didn't know how to be one hundred percent human about it.
     That ice-breaking moment was the point of the great thaw for us.  We struck up an amazing friendship that lasted a handful of years until his death.  I took WV's death hard.  He was so fragile, but had tried to stay like a block of granite for the 10 years that had followed his wife's tragic death.  He needed people, but was afraid of losing them.  He was sort of a young bully in an old body.  We shared many conversations together and my mother always sent hot meals to his house on the holidays.  We always invited him over, but his pride stood in the way.  Eating my mother's delicious meals, alone, was okay for him.
     As I bit into that Payday bar, it was like eating a Litmus Lozenge for me.  I thought of William Montgomery Vaughn and his fragility.  His pride had caused him the pain of loneliness.  The salty peanuts made me think of his Fifth Avenue bars and as I wiped my tears away as I drove, I finally understood how something could be sweet and sad and all kinds of melancholy all at one time.  I could taste the sorrow of a friendship that had been wonderful for both of us.  I could taste the sorrow of missing someone that I really cared about... even after 18 solid years.  It wasn't just about feeling sad, it was tasting sorrow.
     That moment faded and my daughters were worried about my tears.  I assured them that they were happy tears and I tried to explain what had happened.  I don't think they really got it.  I'm not sure if this blog will even make sense, but I hope that those of you who read it, will get the chance to taste life's Litmus Lozenges just once in this lifetime.