Sunday Afternoon Rocking


A Long Chain of Wonderful



If ever there was another as wonderful as she was, I am not sure who it might have been. She had a sparkle in her eye, and a story always ready to be told upon her tongue. She told wonderful tales, of Indian ancestors and pioneer ancestors, of "haints" and miracles. How much was actually truth, and how much embroidered for the sake of entertaining a youngster, I am perpetually in search of and have never quite discovered. She knew just when to pause for effect, just when to lower her voice to a suspenseful whisper, just when the story was ended in such a way to leave room for a ripe imagination to keep dwelling upon it, for a lifetime! She could giggle like a young girl, and tease as surely as her grandchildren. She could cock her head to one side, holding a bit of crochet her hand, eye it appraisingly, go home and reproduce it, needles clicking as the same pattern emerged magically in her lap. She could stir through bits of fabric and "see" the quilt exactly as it would look before her family had a clue what she was thinking. She could narrow her eyes, look you over, and without a pattern, make a dress that fit exactly. She could mutter over a dying houseplant, tuck it under her arm, and when next you saw it, it would be green and flowering. She could coax a feathered friend to say "pretty bird!" and a child to say "thank you" and "please". She could make chicken and dumplins before many could warm up what came in a can, and her "blue jelly" was a delight to the little girl who grasped a jar of it each time she returned home from a visit. She was my "Me-Maw", my grandmother.

If ever there has been another as wonderful as she is, I am not sure who it could have been, unless it was Me-Maw. She is my very best friend. We tackle remodeling together, and get way in over our heads before we think about what we got into. We rest quietly together, and dream together. She both exasperates and delights me with her level of energy, for I, eighteen years her junior, sometimes have to struggle to keep up with her. She is alternately a carpenter, a designer, an engineer, a plumber, a seamstress. She can, without pausing for breath, rebuild a garage door, fix a leaky faucet, hammer together a bookshelf, redecorate a room, design and make herself draperies of any style she has glimpsed in a magazine or on television, and more than a few sets that came from her own imagination. Once I invited her to "tea parties" where she solemnly drank air from a tiny cup. Now we share coffee breaks. We are dangerous in a bookstore together, and occasionally, for the sake of both our financial pictures, have to "swear off" and remind each other "we mustn't". We can dream up more projects together than any army of women could accomplish in a lifetime. We can overhear something and our eyes meet, then delighted smiles cross our faces, for we invariably know what the other is thinking. My children call her their "jazzy grandma", and think she can
do no wrong, and perhaps she can't, not in our eyes, anyway. She is "Mama", my mother.

I suspect, if I had known my great grandmother a bit more in my childhood, I would be able to say, "if ever there had been another as wonderful as she was, I am not sure who it could have been, unless it was my Me-Maw or my Mama". I suspect so, because I know how my Mama and my Me-Maw spoke of her, and hearing the stories of her "water fight" with the children at the creek, I suspect she had the same mischievous twinkle in her eye as my
Me-Maw, the same girlish giggle. Hearing of her talents, I suspect she may well have been how it was that my Me-Maw had such an adept hand and eye with a needle, such a wonderful sense of color, and my Mama has the same. In fact, I suspect these traits I call so "wonderful" must have been passed through the generations, and each young lady has thought the same of her Mama through the ages.

I suspect each of you this day, are remembering Mama, or a grandmother. Perhaps you are thinking of a favorite aunt or someone who in some way "mothered" you and made you feel secure and nurtured. And that is as it should be, as the roots are tended so flowers the garden. And so somewhere in your life, I hope for each of you, there was a lady about whom you can say, "If ever there has been another as wonderful as she was or is. I am not sure who it could have been." Tell her today, if she is yet with you, and if not, tell another that they may remember what you remember.

Just a thought,
jan

Copyright ©2001JanPhilpot

 

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Thanks, jan)


 


 

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