Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void. Simone Weil
I'm one of those people who believes that we are mothered [and fathered, but that will be the next post] by many women in our lives, not just our biological mother. There is no planning this, there is grace and serendipity about the "other mothers" who show up in our lives. They can be co workers, therapists, next door neighbors, teachers, members of our church, cousins, aunts, grandparents or shop keepers. The connection is sometimes only recognized in retrospect, and sometimes, for a very lucky few it is immediate: you know that you are being nurtured and loved and you come back, repeatedly, for more.
My own mother had six kids under the age of ten and you can imagine that she might have been short on time and attention for all of us. That's where the grandparents came in handy. My Gramma Florence, who in later years called herself "GG" after the first grandchild was born [she gave us a choice between that or "Grandma Twosie", no contest] was available on an irregular basis. The three oldest got to have sleepovers at her house. This was thrilling but less than ideal in that we slept in their attic especially it seems on hot summer nights. [It's a miracle we didn't all perish from heat stroke. There was no air conditioning and during the day it often reached 100, heat rises...] Grampa was stern and strict but Gramma was really fun and funny. Fun in that she rarely interfered with what we were doing and also she rarely disciplined us. Then she was, to my child's mind, an excellent cook. No rules to speak of and great food, a child's idea of perfection.
The perfection didn't stop there, she not only loved us, she was incredibly lovable. I loved the way Grama would pinch her nose when she laughed which she did frequently. I loved her softness and her melodious voice. [My Grandparents argued constantly and Grampa said, "Florence if I say 'white' you say 'black." She also was pleasingly plump and Grampa used to say, "Florence, if you get to 200 lbs., I'm divorcing you."]
To my knowledge she never 'played' with us, or taught us much of anything. But she let us hang with her in the kitchen while she made biscuits, cookies or dumplings. [Does anyone make dumplings for chicken stew anymore? It's heavenly.] Actually the entire experience was heavenly: eating her delicious food, talking into the night with my sisters in the attic, walking over the pungent smelling creeping Charlie to go play in their 'barn'. The barn was old, built long before the subdivision and my grandparents house which was a Craftsman, built in the 1920's. That barn housed junk and old newspapers that my grandparents saved for the newspaper drives held by the schools. Most likely it probably was filthy but we didn't care and treated it like our fort. At the time, Gramma was in her sixties [which to us was ancient] and she must have been exhausted by us but still she let us come.
So when I said "she never taught us much of anything", I mean like scholarly things because she did teach us many other things, like kindness, freedom, caring, love, cooking and humor. In her seventies, after my Grandpa died she would come to all of Mom and Dad's parties, drink her Scotch on the rocks [one] and when the music was really rolling she'd dance the hula with her arms only. I know that this embarrassed my mother but to us it was dear, charming and beautiful.
GG Up in Arms
True heaven was playing with the fat
dangling off GG's upper arms.
GG would obligingly hold her arms out
and we'd gently swat the fat back and forth.
The skin felt like satin, velvet, love,
smelled like Merle Norman and lavender.
It's the memory of those arms I treasure:
Arms that are cloud light yet mountain solid,
Arms that could encircle children, dreams, the world,
Arms that wove a hula, graceful as a breeze,
Arms that gave more than they received.
If our Catholic fairy tale of heaven is true
GG's there in heaven's kitchen
wearing her apron, weaving a hula--
fat merrily waving on those glorious arms.
Susan R. Grout 2001
 |
| A nurturing Auntie |
No comments:
Post a Comment