For Mammy

So, I guess it's grandparents' day today. I didn't know all of them. My dad's mother died five years before I was born, and his dad had been gone a long time before that, so I only know of those grandparents through the pictures I have of them and the stories I've been told.

My mother's mother was widowed when my mom was eighteen, so I never knew her husband, my grandpa.

So I want to focus on the one grandparent I knew for the first few years of my life: my maternal grandmother, known to all in our little family as "Mammy." She was a big part of my life until I was eleven.

Before I came along, everyone called her "Mama" or "Ma" I think. I was a late addition to our small, close-knit family. My mother's only sister had one daughter, who was eighteen when I was born.  My mom and dad had my brother three years after my aunt had my cousin, so he was nearly fifteen by the time I came on the scene.

Imagine how everyone's worlds were turned upside down in the neighborhood where my parents and my aunt and uncle lived. They were always very close, living across the street from each other before I was born and all through my childhood.

So, two sisters, each with a teenager, and then.....me.

Yeah, I'll bet things changed dramatically. LOL!

Among the changes was the name for the Grandma of the family. They say I insisted on calling her Mammy. I don't remember. (I was very young).

Anyway, my mom worked outside the home, a rarity in the fifties, so Mammy kept me while my mom and dad worked. I was very close to her; she practically raised me. She lived with my aunt, but every morning she would walk over to my house to stay with me.

Pictures, the very few I have of her, portray her as a sweet little old lady with long gray hair, always braided and put in a bun. Truth of the matter is, though, she was only sixty-four when I was born. I am now sixty-four, and I still don't admit I have gray hair, much less wear it in a bun all the time.

Our culture has changed, of course, and my life is vastly different than hers was. As a poor woman living and raising a family in the depression, she and my grandpa always had to work very hard to just survive.

Anyway, one of my earliest memories is sitting in her lap in the rocking chair in the living room as my mom backed out of the driveway to go to work. Cool, early mornings just about dawn sometimes remind me of that time when I was being held by my Mammy, and I was safe, comforted, and loved.

Once when I was about 8, my mom, dad, and I were on vacation, going camping on a lake in southern Missouri, and one evening while traveling there I saw a house that reminded me of my aunt's house, where Mammy lived. I remember being overcome with homesickness and crying because I missed my Mammy and wanted to go home. I don't remember for sure, but I think my parents found a pay phone and called her long distance so I could talk to her, because I was inconsolable.

Funny what sticks in your childhood memories, isn't it? I remember that it was about sunset that we passed that house that made me think of Mammy. To this day, sunsets while I'm traveling occasionally affect me in that way. I'm not overcome with homesickness, but I just feel a little sad with a longing to have my family around me if I'm not with any of them.

This was not meant to be sad, even though it kind of reads that way. I am not sad, nor am I depressed any longer. I smile when I think of the only grandparent I had. She had serious health issues and died one month before I turned twelve, but I will always cherish those years with her.

If you still have one or all of your grandparents, you are blessed. Tell them you love them.

Happy Grandparents Day to my Mammy in heaven. I love you.