To Grandmother's House We Go......

I always wanted to be the kind of grandmother who wore an apron over her ample tummy, baked the best cookies, and reserved Saturday nights for the grandkids to sleep over. The only part that came true was the tummy. Siiiiigh.

My kids and grandbabies live so far away that I rarely get to see them. But I am grateful for phone calls and pictures and cards and letters. And God bless Skype.

I didn't have a grandmother who set a good example for what a grandmother should be like.

My mother's mother lived in another state, and I can only remember seeing her once when I was tiny. Then her husband killed her. And that was that.

My father's mother....oh my Lord, she was a piece of work. I don't know if my siblings and my cousins would remember her the same way I do...but if they don't they can get their own blogs.

Sometimes the best place to start a story is at the end, so I'll start there.......Mama C's funeral. In the South, when there's a service at the funeral home, there is a long curtain for the family to sit behind...runs along the side of the chapel....gives the family a little privacy to conduct their sobbing and wailing over their dearly departed loved one. That's where we sat...all the family. I was on the row with my sister and brother and a couple of cousins, safely concealed by the long gauzy curtain, while the preacher talked about what a fine loving woman Mrs. C was.

Wait a minute....who was he talking about???....surely we're in the wrong place....somebody better take a peek around the curtain and make sure we're in the right service...yep, we are....Cousin D. looked....My only hope was that my sister wouldn't catch my eye, cause I knew I would lose it if she did, and this was NOT the place for gales of laughter. I bit the inside of my cheek bloody trying to maintain my composure. This sweet loving Mrs C who was on her way to Glory was NOT the woman I remembered.

My grandmother lived in an old frame house on an acre of land, still rural enough to have a barn in the back for my sister's horse, but town enough to have a laundromat and a little store next door. She had 6 surviving children, wore black sensible shoes, and always smelled like pee. I doubt she ever made a cookie in her life.

I grew up hearing stories about her. Like the time she moved while Grandad was at work...kids, furniture, and all...to another house down the street that she liked better. He came home to an empty house and had to go ask the neighbors where he lived. Or the time she pulled the "slop jar" (aka chamberpot) out from under the bed to pee in it, but it turned out to be Grandad's shoe.

But my own stories are better, I think.

My daddy was a long distance trucker while I was growing up and he was gone a lot. Sometimes mother just wanted out of the house, away from 3 kids, just to have a cup of coffee with a girlfriend, so she would swallow her pride and ask Mama C to watch us for a couple of hours. She would drive us down the long dark road, that ran past the Colored Cemetery and through "that" part of town and drop us off, with a solemn vow to pick us up no later than 10pm. I don't think Mama C liked to babysit, cause she was always saying something like this..."OH Laws Laws...your mother is late...I bet you some (n-word) has knocked her in the head and left her to die in the ditch...LAWS LAWS!!!" By the time Mother would arrive, MAYBE five minutes late, we were all sobbing and wailing over our dearly departed mother and Mama C was saying how she didn't like to keep kids who cried. *_*

When my sister was 16 years old, she had to have her tonsils taken out. Mother and Daddy of course went to the hospital with her, and my brother and I were left in Mama C's care. At some point after the surgery, some stitches came loose and my sister started to bleed. The surgeon was called back in, sewed her up and all was well...crisis averted. When the excitement was all over and Sis was back in her room eating ice cream, a call was placed to Mama C and the situation described. Here's how she told it to us...."Laws Laws!!! Palma is laying up there bleeding to death and nobody is doing anything to save her!! LAWS LAWS!!"  (btw, my sister's name is NOT Palma, but Mama never could get our names completely right.) By the time Mother and Daddy picked us up, my brother and I were sobbing and wailing over our dearly departed sister, taken away so young....and Mama C was complaining about kids who cry. *_*

I don't get to see my babies very often, and Dave is the cookie  baker around here, and I don't own an apron, but I hope I turned out to be a pretty decent Grandma after all.

I may not have become the Grandmother of my dreams, but at least I didn't become the Grandmother of my nightmares.