Her name was Grandmother. I couldn’t tell you why it was Grandmother, and not something more colloquial like Grandmaw or Nanny. We had these, too. Maybe hers was in deference to her more mature years. Or maybe it was what my father had called her. It was said with much love and affection.
Grandfather had died when I was young. There is a picture of me with him, though I don’t recall him. I only recall her telling a couple of stories about him. One was that, while she lived with her in-laws, who had said they could use the wood from a barn to build their own home, she got tired of waiting for him to build it. So one day, she went out to the barn and started tearing the wood apart herself. And that was my Grandmother.
She had raised my father, though his mother would tell us different. Regardless of who had raised him, he was raised in a farm house in a county in Mississippi. When I was growing up, the farm house was still the place that my great Grandmother lived.
There was a gravel driveway, and iron gates once painted silver with a pattern of a wagon wheel in them. On her back porch was a rope and pulley system that went down to a well beneath the house to pull up water. The front porch held a rocker and a swing. She was known to sit on the rocker for hours, and we loved the swing.
It’s hard to separate memories of her from memories of her home. The two are entwined together like one individual. Her bedroom had a fireplace for warmth, an oscilating fan for coolness, a large desk and the door to the bathroom. Two other bedrooms held an assortment of cedar closets and beds and chests with amazing things in them. The kitchen had a pie safe and a gas stove. The dining room held her refridgerator and a large round table. And on this table, when we could come to visit, was often a freshly baked pound cake.
This place, this woman, and her home, is the place where my love of pound cakes began. And most likely, I love them simply for the sheer memories of her that can come rushing back with the taste. I can feel the formica on the table, and the ceramic pitcher in which she kept milk. I smell the fragrance of wood from her fireplace. Or feel the wood on the cedar closets. With that taste, I can hear the crunch of gravel under my feet and see her in her rocker, watching the king snakes in her yard.
There was a tree stump in the back yard. Dad told us he’s watched her chop off many a chicken’s neck on that tree stump. I can see her walk past it to hang laundry on the line. I can see her braids wrapped around her head. Sometimes I look at the shade of grey my hair is becoming, and I think it is distinctly the same shade as hers.
There were an assortment of buildings on her land, once a well used farm of some type. There was a building Dad called a smokehouse, and one that was clearly a barn. And far in the back was a pond that Dad said had once held fish.
Grandmother is gone now. She lived until she was almost 100, and most of it she lived in that home. She spent a few years in a nursing home, one my Mother went to great effort to get her into because it was the best in the area. I did my best as a grandson to write her often, and visit her when I could, so that her time there would at least be dotted with moments. She had other descendants, too, from her son. But I don’t know them or their relationship with her. But that nursing home is never where I think of her. I think of her in that farm house. I think of her in the rocker on her porch watching the busy traffic go by. I think of her hanging laundry on the line. And I think of the sights and fragrances in that home; the smells of firewood and cedar and linens long since not used.
Sometimes as I drive down I-55 through Mississippi, I see the exit to the country church where she and Grandfather are buried. The church is surprisingly large, given the rural area it seems to be in. I stop for a few minutes and leave the flowers I thought to bring, and throw away the ones that have stayed in the vase since my last drive through the area.
MyFella was with me once, and a dark cloud blew up and a mighty wind came. I tried not to think on it, give it any credence, that there was a storm when I took my boyfriend, my partner, with me. She was an old school Baptist Christian. She would have loved me, in spite of.
Pound cake on a formica table top, the smell of firewood, the crunch of gravel under foot, and the sound of traffic through an old screen door.
Grandfather had died when I was young. There is a picture of me with him, though I don’t recall him. I only recall her telling a couple of stories about him. One was that, while she lived with her in-laws, who had said they could use the wood from a barn to build their own home, she got tired of waiting for him to build it. So one day, she went out to the barn and started tearing the wood apart herself. And that was my Grandmother.
She had raised my father, though his mother would tell us different. Regardless of who had raised him, he was raised in a farm house in a county in Mississippi. When I was growing up, the farm house was still the place that my great Grandmother lived.
There was a gravel driveway, and iron gates once painted silver with a pattern of a wagon wheel in them. On her back porch was a rope and pulley system that went down to a well beneath the house to pull up water. The front porch held a rocker and a swing. She was known to sit on the rocker for hours, and we loved the swing.
It’s hard to separate memories of her from memories of her home. The two are entwined together like one individual. Her bedroom had a fireplace for warmth, an oscilating fan for coolness, a large desk and the door to the bathroom. Two other bedrooms held an assortment of cedar closets and beds and chests with amazing things in them. The kitchen had a pie safe and a gas stove. The dining room held her refridgerator and a large round table. And on this table, when we could come to visit, was often a freshly baked pound cake.
This place, this woman, and her home, is the place where my love of pound cakes began. And most likely, I love them simply for the sheer memories of her that can come rushing back with the taste. I can feel the formica on the table, and the ceramic pitcher in which she kept milk. I smell the fragrance of wood from her fireplace. Or feel the wood on the cedar closets. With that taste, I can hear the crunch of gravel under my feet and see her in her rocker, watching the king snakes in her yard.
There was a tree stump in the back yard. Dad told us he’s watched her chop off many a chicken’s neck on that tree stump. I can see her walk past it to hang laundry on the line. I can see her braids wrapped around her head. Sometimes I look at the shade of grey my hair is becoming, and I think it is distinctly the same shade as hers.
There were an assortment of buildings on her land, once a well used farm of some type. There was a building Dad called a smokehouse, and one that was clearly a barn. And far in the back was a pond that Dad said had once held fish.
Grandmother is gone now. She lived until she was almost 100, and most of it she lived in that home. She spent a few years in a nursing home, one my Mother went to great effort to get her into because it was the best in the area. I did my best as a grandson to write her often, and visit her when I could, so that her time there would at least be dotted with moments. She had other descendants, too, from her son. But I don’t know them or their relationship with her. But that nursing home is never where I think of her. I think of her in that farm house. I think of her in the rocker on her porch watching the busy traffic go by. I think of her hanging laundry on the line. And I think of the sights and fragrances in that home; the smells of firewood and cedar and linens long since not used.
Sometimes as I drive down I-55 through Mississippi, I see the exit to the country church where she and Grandfather are buried. The church is surprisingly large, given the rural area it seems to be in. I stop for a few minutes and leave the flowers I thought to bring, and throw away the ones that have stayed in the vase since my last drive through the area.
MyFella was with me once, and a dark cloud blew up and a mighty wind came. I tried not to think on it, give it any credence, that there was a storm when I took my boyfriend, my partner, with me. She was an old school Baptist Christian. She would have loved me, in spite of.
Pound cake on a formica table top, the smell of firewood, the crunch of gravel under foot, and the sound of traffic through an old screen door.
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