Christmas is a time to remember the women in our lives who have raised us and given their love and support. To all the Mothers and Grandmothers we give a sincere thank you.
When my husband and I were dating, he took me to meet his grandmother. Her mother’s name was Tennessee, and they named her Elizabeth, but everyone called her Mawdy. Mawdy was a delightful contradiction. She constantly read the Bible, and she was a whiz with plants. You usually found her out in her garden wearing a prairie sunbonnet, just like the pioneer ladies who came over in covered wagons. The wooden arbor over her white picket fence was lush with roses, and you could drop off a plant near death for her tender care. She would usually say “Why the soil is as dry as a chip.” When you came back two weeks later, your plant had risen from the dead. Beside the back door she kept a fifty-gallon rain barrel with a tight lid in which she stored rain water. She dipped it out with a tin dipper–for the plants, or to shampoo her long, white hair. Her kitchen always smelled like bacon frying, and her coffee was strong, so bitter no one ever asked for seconds. When she traveled by car, she always took a wet washcloth in a small Mason jar, just in case, and she always told us to do the same. She never elaborated on what disaster a wet washcloth could remedy, but I guess she reasoned the comforts of home couldn’t hurt either. She was a quiet no-nonsense woman, and her favorite saying was “Well whoopty do, child, I declare.” Her house was immaculate, and everyone said you could eat off her white linoleum floor, and I believed them. Mawdy is no longer with us, but her spirit lives on, and I often think of her tiny house, her flower-filled yard and front porch plant hospital. 