My grandmother passed away on Saturday. Her mind had declined over the last decade and in the last week her body shut down too, as she passed from this world into the next. Perhaps in Divine preparation, my mind began swirling with memories a full week before my mom called on last Thursday to say the time remaining was short.
Of my grandmother cooking for our extended family, countless school children, friends, and neighbors,
of the way she pedaled a three wheeled bike back and forth between her garden a two “blocks” away, laden heavy with five gallon buckets of fresh picked green beans in the back basket,
of the way she taught me to cook with recipes only as a suggestion, eyeballing ingredients and tasting things until they were just so,
of the way she collected names and dollars to send flowers to the funeral home for people who had lost their loved ones,
of the way she listened to police scanner the same way I check social media, not snooping – just to be in the know.
of how she taught me to drive in that gray Ford Taurus the summer my family remodeled our “new” old home.
Her name was Beulah and as the story goes, she had no middle name because her parents had tired by the time their fifth child arrived. It was incredibly important to her that I (and everyone else in the family) learned to spell that single name correctly. I vividly remember sitting at her kitchen table with a blue clicky ink pen pressing down on a top bound mini-spiral notebook B-E-U-L-A-H until I got it just right.
Her kitchen table was a holy place. People gathered there to talk, to play games, to make decisions. She sat quietly and played Solitaire there. And of course the clicky pens, spiral notebooks, and police scanner all had their place on a table in the corner. Patterns were cut at that table and quilt tops assembled. Her clear nail polish and file, and a cup of black coffee were usually nearby, too.
Oh the meals devoured on that table – fried chicken, mashed potatoes and noodles, new potatoes picked fresh from the garden and pan friend, hand grated creamy cole slaw, corn on the cob, hamburgers from the grill, holiday ham, and more. The desserts were of course the sweetest – chocolate mayonnaise cake, enormous cinnamon rolls, apple pies and dumplings, persimmon pudding, ice cream (sometimes from the store or if you were lucky and there was rock salt, homemade), and the fresh harvested blackberries and raspberries that she spent hours gathering in secret wooded picking places.
She was not perfect, as none of us are, nor was she overly sentimental. Her direct words and actions both stung and brought a balm of healing more than once, sometimes simultaneously. Her no-nonsense compassion extended to those who needed it most, unquestioningly serving in whatever way necessary without complaint. Loads of laundry, meals prepared, fresh vegetables harvested, prepped, and frozen, clothes mended, and the dirtiest work necessary done without a nod to how it might affect her schedule or divert from her needs. Her generosity came not with dollars donated – for she had few to spare – but through the sharing of her time and talents, over and over again, to stranger and friend alike.
This ability to be unafraid in speaking her mind runs through the veins of her children and grandchildren, and more than likely the generations to come. In an era when women were supposed to be meek and mild, refined to hearth and home, my grandmother defied gender roles. Never fearful of hard work, she could keep up with those half her age and supposedly stronger than she was. More than once, I witnessed her lug #10 cans of beans or pudding or corn from the basement of the school built in 1910 that I attended up two flights of stairs to its cafeteria where she prepared meals for 30+ years.
Statements based upon your breadth of knowledge were meant to be spoken with strength and held to with a firmness of belief. I can see this trait displayed in each of her children in their own areas of influence and ability. You work hard because it’s the right thing to do, until the job is finished, regardless of whether or not others think you capable. Again, a genetic disposition inherited by her offspring.
A backwoods mystery enveloped her, too. My mind grapples with the fact that she attend a one room school house through the eight grade in rural Kentucky. Isn’t that something Laura Ingalls Wilder would have done? Her ability to “witch” a well with a forked stick convinced me as a child that she possessed superpowers. I’ve been told she could tell you you were pregnant even before you knew yourself, simply by looking at the shape of your eyes. Never short on superstitions or pragmatic, homegrown solutions, she made things work without much outside input or care for expert opinions.
In spite of her mystic air, my grandmother and I rarely spoke about faith. Perhaps only briefly talking of such things around the time of my grandfather Hubert’s passing in 1998 (my grandparents really have the best grandparent-y names of all time). On Sundays, our family of four piled into the car to go to church. We returned hungry and spilled into her home instead of our own. My cousins, aunts, and uncles followed suit and the bed in the spare room soon had coats stacked high and wide. Her kitchen’s buffet could have fed an army and often we went home with enough leftovers for dinner, packed in Country Crock and cottage cheese plastic bowls. I mentioned to Brian recently that I’ve always felt a little bit guilty or at least unease in the fact that she spent her Sunday morning mixing and baking, peeling potatoes and cooking while we sang songs about grace and learned lessons from the Bible. His remark, short and sweet, washed away that shame.
“While you were at church, she was busied preparing the elements.”
The greatest of sacrifices, the pouring out of offerings, laid bare on the stovetop and the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. Some of us talk about faith and a few of us write about faith, but blessed are those who live faith in a guttural day-to-day breaking of bread and cleaning up of messes.
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Jackie says
What a wonderful way to remember your grandmother. Nine years of my life were spent at that school where she cooked many wonderful meals. I always thought she was kind of feisty. 🙂 I will always remember her. {{{HUGS}}}
crisgoode says
Such a sweet post. Hugs.
Kimberly Dagenhart says
your grandmother loved you so much and this post brought me to tears , I know her and my grandmother her big sister are looking down on us and making that Sunday dinner together, waiting on us all to eat drink and remember all our glorious days of youth and I can’t wait. she and uncle hubert are and will always be the foundation of love for our family and my heart thank you dear Child for making me remember all those family days ago, I love you kido.