Visions of all my hard work going for naught, I nodded and dropped the bag on the pile of cartons I’d planned to throw out as well. She’d never let me get away with it now.
Seizing upon the one item I was sure we could ditch, I grabbed the blue-glass measuring cup, chipped in many places and minus the handle. “Surely we can throw this away.” I held it up to better study it in the light. “Why, there’s a crack running through the side and bottom. It won’t even hold liquid.”
A frail, age-spot marked hand reached past me, claiming the glass.
“The church gave me this years ago,” Grandma whispered. “For years of service as Sunday school superintendent. Said it was a measure of their love for me and my service for God.” She studied the ragged edge where the handle was missing. “Your Granddaddy was supposed to fix that handle back on here long time ago. I wonder where he put it?”
Sighing, I reclaimed the measuring cup and replaced it in the cabinet. I’d ask Granddaddy where to find the handle later, though highly doubtful he’d be able to remember. But if so, maybe I could fix it myself. After all, at the age of eighty-two, Grandma was still Sunday school superintendent.
She was one strong woman. Mulish, too.
Grandma wandered on, sorting through her treasures, amid stories of days gone by . . . hunting honey with her pa, churning butter with her mama, and later teaching my mother (who could never sit still long enough for the butter to clot). She told me of organizing church dinners and the church family who was always there, supporting each other as best they could, and of days of scraping and scrimping just to get by.
“You never know when you just might need another bread tie, Pumpkin.”
I nodded absently, as I placed most of what I’d removed back in the cupboard. But neater than before, and with more space from the missing bags and wrap. Then I whipped on Grandma’s frayed, yellow apron, which matched the walls of her kitchen, and cooked a simple breakfast—eggs and ham, minus the biscuits she usually fixed.
Mine were always hard as a rock.
Ushering Grandma out onto the porch an hour later, after finishing up morning chores and watching as she gave herself the insulin shot, I locked the front door with the skeleton key they still used. Then steadying her elbow, I helped her toward the new Celica I’d bought with my pay from working on campus. Naked trees clawed against the stark gray sky, foretelling of freezing weather to come.
Granddaddy’s ’46 Ferguson tractor looked forlorn, parked at the end of the drive, where he’d left it from his last jaunt down to Harvey’s weeks ago. They’d taken his license away at age eighty-eight, but there was no way they were going to stop him from buying his RC Cola whenever the notion took or jawing with his old friends hanging out at the general store.
“Shall we ride the tractor to the hospital?” I asked Grandma, hoping to raise a smile.
“Shush, Susan.” Grandma shuffled on.
We arrived at the ICU to find Granddaddy lying back in bed, an unopened pile of cards on the bed tray in front of him. His face white and his gray hair mussed, Granddaddy looked quite ill—but more from temper than from sickness.
“Hey there, Honey Bee,” he greeted me. He’d always called me that. His little honey bee.
I leaned over and pecked his paper-thin cheek.
“That young nurse won’t let me be,” he grumbled, his faded blue eyes minus their usual spark. “Keeps coming in here and covering up my feet.” His legs shifted restlessly beneath the white, sterile hospital blanket. “They can’t breathe.”
“Stop your complaining, you old man,” Grandma said as she carefully uncovered his feet, folding the blanket back neatly. “Those nurses got better things to do all day than cater to your silly whims.”
She stepped to his side table and poured him a cup of water, then held his head higher so he could drink. “Thinking your feet could breathe. Losing your mind along with all that blood.”
He mumbled something under his breath. “Ol’ devil woman gonna drive me to drink yet . . .” being all I could catch.
Stuffing the laugh down my throat, I brought out the measuring cup to distract him. “Granddaddy, do you know where the missing handle for this is?”
His eyes narrowed on the glass in my hand. “Hmm.” He paused only a moment. “If I recall right, you’ll find it in the top tray of my trunk in front of the stairs. Never did get around to buying that special glue.”
“Lots of things you never get ’round to, Clarence,” Grandma nagged.
And they were off, bickering between themselves, while all the time Grandma took care of Granddaddy’s needs and they both chatted pleasantly with me and an endless stream of company. Grandma and Granddaddy either knew or were related to everyone in that tri-county area. Sometimes related in more ways than one.
I slipped out around noon to fetch Grandma a lunch tray, and buy some Crazy Glue.
Several days later, I’d cleaned through all the kitchen cabinets and was digging out the inner recesses of the walk-in pantry. It had been so full of junk, I’d always been afraid of entering as a child, not sure what kind of critters or spooks lurked in those cob-webby corners.
Now, well, it didn’t look all bright and shiny, not enough light from the pull chain fixture, but I’d be hard-pressed to find a monster here. Tomorrow I’d start on the sideboard in the dining room, then the hand-made china cabinet, and then the jagged row of magazine and mail piles decorating the steps up the stairwell.
My mind busy with my plans, I dragged the last item out of the pantry—Grandma’s old dough bowl. Goodness, did I have fond memories of this. Grandma’d made fresh country biscuits every single morning of her married life—until Granddaddy’d gone in the hospital.
She’d bought me and my older sister little red-handled rolling pins when we were younger and would give us each a pinch of dough to roll and pat and bake for ourselves, though mine never made it to the oven. Still like the taste of raw dough.
I’ve tried over the years to make biscuits like Grandma’s, even with the whole-wheat that I now prefer, but never could get mine to come out as anything other than solid bricks. Grandma’s, though, were soft and moist and at their best topped with her homemade grape jelly. The older jars that had started sugaring off held the sweetest jam.
Cradling the precious dough bowl in my hands, I hurried to the sink. Grandma’d probably never cleaned this out in her life. It was coated and covered in white flour with hard pieces of dough caked in the bottom. I washed and scrubbed, soaked and scrubbed, and washed some more, until it all came clean.
That’s when I saw the error of my ways.
Unfortunately the dough had been holding the bottom of the bowl together. Now I was staring through a worn-thin strip to the bottom of the sink.
“Your granddaddy carved that out of a piece of oak for me when we first married,” Grandma said behind me.
Directly behind me.
I turned to face her, her hazel eyes watery.
“Grandma, I-I’m so sorry.” I jerked up the bowl, searching for a way to repair it. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Ain’t important, Sweetpea.” Grandma took the bowl out of my hands and shuffled to the table, dropping it amid the day’s piles. “That hole’s been there for years. Don’t mean the bowl’s no good. I fixed many a biscuit with the bottom worn out. Plan to fix many a more.”
“But . . . but, can we, I mean, can I fix it for you?”
“No need.” Her long, withered fingers stroked the aged-smoothened wood. “A good bread bowl’s like a good Bible. The more ragged it is, the more it’s been used . . . and loved.”
I watched Grandma sitting there, her threadbare cardigan covering her slight but sturdy body, the lines on her face testimony to her years of hard work, harder life and determined love.
At her elbow on the table was
a picture of her and Granddaddy when they’d first married, taken on the banks of a creek on a church picnic, their faces smooth, young, and lighted with care-free smiles. I’d found the photo stuffed in the back of a drawer during my previous day’s explorations, and confiscated an appropriate frame for such a beautiful relic.
Now, looking at the youthful faces, I remembered Granddaddy the day before in the hospital, his breath ragged, his body curled almost in a fetal position, his life visibly leaving him, and Grandma once again uncovering his feet so they could breathe.
I understood; I still had a lot to learn.
But Life has a way of teaching us. Life and the ones we love, hold dear to our hearts. Maybe someday I’d have a granddaughter. And I’d be sure to let her explore my cupboards. Maybe by then, I’d have a story to tell worth hearing.
Three nights later, Granddaddy died. Arriving home to Grandma’s from the midnight hospital vigil in an unusual North Carolina snowstorm, I was chosen to sleep with Grandma in Granddaddy’s place. All my aunts, uncles, and, of course, Mama had joined us as Granddaddy’s condition worsened. Mama took my place on the couch.
Yes, I was almost twenty-two, a senior in college, and better than my upbringing, but I still felt scared and empty climbing into that high iron-post bed with Grandma, her muffled sobs giving way to a low snore. Shivering beneath the covers, the stove having gone out while we were all at the hospital, finally I slept.
Then toward morning, Granddaddy visited my dreams.
You know how sometimes you drift between a state of deep sleep and not yet awake? Granddaddy came to me in just such a awareness, drew me off his place in bed and carried me piggy-back to the kitchen, where he sat me on a counter beneath a cupboard and turned to talk with me, his aged face smoother, younger, lighter than I’d seen it in years.
His blue eyes crinkled as he hugged me and whispered in my ear. “I’m going home now, Susan, and I want you to take care of your Grandma until she rejoins me.” He stepped away, squeezing my hand, as he fuzzed at the edges. “You be a good girl now, ya hear.” Granddaddy flickered, like a candle in the wind, almost disappearing. “I love you, my little Honey Bee.” With a last caress from his age spotted hand to my cheek, he was gone.
I awoke in bed, inches away from Grandma, still sleeping, the sun peeking through the blinds, a nearby rooster crowing, and clutched in my palm was that blue glass handle Granddaddy had asked me to fix.
“I promise, Granddaddy,” I whispered, a lone tear burning my cheek. “I’ll never forget.”
And I never did.
Here’s to y’all, Grandma and Granddaddy, joined again these last eighteen years. Grandma hurried to join Granddaddy a scant year-and-a-half later.
I wonder, does God allow bickering in Heaven?
Author’s note:
Yes, the dream really happened, just that way.
Want to know how I made my list of the “trash” found in Grandma’s cupboards? Besides pulling from memory, I sorted through my own cabinets. Hoarding—a delightful family legacy that drives my husband insane!
Remembering The 1940s
Rosebud Salve
Making margarine in a bag
Rabbit gums
Sitting on the front porch with the women of the family snapping beans and peas
Napping while the women quilted
Listening to an old wind up Victrola
Putting a banner on the window or door to show that a member of that family was in the service during WWII
Blackouts during the war
Ration books
Seeing hundreds of airplanes fly over in formation during the war
—Clara Wimberly, A Doll With Red Hair
Homeplace
by Ellen Birkett Morris
“I’m still the little Southern girl from the wrong side of the tracks who really didn’t feel like she belonged.”
—Faye Dunaway, actress
I ran out the back door and took a deep breath, just like Mamma taught me to do when I’m upset. Sitting under the maple tree, I thought, What was happening to Granny Bess?
It was like the time I left my watercolor painting of a house on the porch to dry and it started to rain. All the sharp lines got fuzzy. The solid, red square of the house lost its shape. After a while, the picture turned into faded streaks of color. Granny was fading too.
Granny Bess was a storyteller, the kind of storyteller that made me want to curl up under a quilt and listen forever. She loved to talk about the family homeplace where she grew up.
“Come here, Chloe. Let me tell you about the homeplace,” she’d say and pull me onto her lap.
Granny Bess told her stories in a whisper, just for me.
When it was warm outside, she told me about summers when she was a girl.
“When I was your age I’d play in the field behind our house. The ground was covered with wildflowers for as far as I could see. I’d sit under the oak tree and have tea with my doll.”
“What would you eat, Granny?” I’d ask.
“We ate wild strawberries and drank drops of nectar from honeysuckle blooms. We’d pretend that the tops of dandelions were small biscuits,” said Granny.
Back home, I spread a blanket on the lawn and had tea parties of my own.
In winter, she told me about Christmas when she was a girl.
“As soon as the sun was up, I’d rush downstairs and unhook my stocking from the mantle. It was stuffed with goodies, oranges wrapped in tissue paper, shiny pink and white ribbons of peppermint candy and hand-carved blocks that my daddy would make himself,” said Granny.
“No games?” I’d ask.
“The blocks were my game,” Granny said, with a smile.
She’d tell funny stories, too. “I’ll never forget the time I took my daddy’s antique car from Burkesville to Glasgow to play in the girl’s basketball tournament. That car was so darn slow, just put-putting down the road. The other girls were passing me up on foot. I was so mad,” she said with a laugh. When she was done telling me her stories, she would squeeze my hand and smile.
She stopped telling stories about the time that she started to ask the same questions over and over again.
Some days she would ask the score of my soccer game four times in an afternoon, introduce me to her cat, Ezra, like I had never seen him before, and even stop talking in mid-sentence. Usually she was fine, making her special no-bake cookies, smiling, asking me about school and doting on Ezra.
But then there was the day we drove to the department store. On the way home Granny got lost.
“Let’s see, I go right here?” asked Granny in a shaky voice. I held her hand.
“We go left here, Granny. We go right at the next street.”
When we got back to her house, I sat on the floor petting Ezra while Granny Bess stared out the window.
A few weeks later, Mom and I stopped by Granny’s house and found her dressed in a thin skirt, colorful vest and straw hat wandering around the back yard. Her long gray hair had escaped from its usual tidy bun at the back of her head.
“I’m looking for the roses. They used to be right by the fence,” said Granny. “You’re thinking of the yard at the homeplace, Mom,” said my mother.
“Look, Granny, here are the hollyhocks we planted last summer,” I said. Granny gave a sad smile.
Granny and Mom went inside. I had a strange jumpy feeling in my stomach. Even though she was a few feet away, I missed Granny. After a while, Mom came out back and joined me. She put her arms around me and said, “Don’t worry, Chloe. When some people get older they forget things. We’re going to take care of Granny.”
When I went home that night I lay in bed and went over her stories in my head, trying hard to remember her exact words.
The next week, Mom
and Dad told me that Granny Bess was moving to a new home. She would live in a high rise with other grandparents. She would have someone to cook for her and care for her clothes.
When she got settled, we went to see Granny’s new place. The woman at the reception desk smiled when we came in. A lady with a green vest and nametag showed us around.
There was a large dining room full of tables covered with white tablecloths. A bright glass chandelier hung from the ceiling in the middle of the room.
Next to the dining room was a square game room, its walls covered with paintings. Two old men in baseball caps sat talking and playing a game of checkers. They took a long time to make their moves.
The television room was full of grandmas and grandpas. One couple in wheel chairs held hands. One grandpa slept sitting upright on the couch. A very small granny sat in a large easy chair and crocheted while she watched television.
There was even a heated swimming pool where Granny could do water aerobics. And Granny Bess was allowed to keep Ezra in her room. Granny’s room was clean and bright with a big window that looked onto some tall maple trees. Granny looked happy.
“Who are we visiting?” she asked. “This is your home now,” Mom said. We set her favorite chair in the corner of the room and smoothed the double wedding ring quilt over the bed. When we hugged goodbye, Granny held on for a long time.
Now Mom and I visit every Saturday. Sometimes we talk, trying hard not to notice when Granny repeats herself. On other days, she sits in her rocker and stares out the window.
One Saturday, I brought a shoebox and sat close to Granny on the couch. I opened the box and handed her a honeysuckle blossom. She held it to her nose breathing in the past. Granny ate the corner off a ribbon of peppermint candy and ran her fingers across a small antique car.
I talked to her about tea and Christmas stockings and car rides. She listened, her head close to mine. When I was done, she squeezed my hand and whispered, “Homeplace.”
Back When Animals Could Talk Southern
On Grandma's Porch Page 10