When I think of her I remember food. To this very day every time I go over to that house with the long hallway that used to seem like it went on for miles, it’s all I can do not open up the fridge and check out what leftovers might be available. The best fried pork chops I’ve ever had in my life. Pot roast with carrots and potatoes slow cooked in a baking bag. Oh and of course who can forget that macaroni and cheese! I’ve tried making it so many times and can’t get it right. I know the recipe by heart; Velveeta cheese, noodles, and a can of condensed milk (Not sweetened. I made that mistake once and the result was some kind of nasty cheesy desert nightmare). The last time I tried to make her mac n’ cheese, it ended up so thick I nearly broke a wooden spoon trying to stir it. To this day twice a year I try to make Biscuit Stuff (ground beef, sour cream, tomato sauce, lined with biscuits along the top and then covered in cheese)….I do alright with it, but it’s not same.
I remember sweet tea. She’d boil it on the stove and pour it into this two gallon glass jug. She would drink her tea out of a blue or green Tupperware glass similar to what Uncle Si drinks his out of. She’d add a touch of Real-Lemon and unfortunately never finished a glass as long as I was around. MawMaw would get so frustrated when I came up and took the glass from her.
I remember once I asked for a bowl of shredded wheat. She sat the bowl in front of me and just watched as I started pouring salt over it. “Are you sure you don’t want sugar on that?” she asked. Now we both knew immediately I had made a disastrous mistake, but I’ve always been stubborn. Instead of pouring the bowl into the trash can, I simply replied “This is how we eat it at my house.”I then added a touch more for emphasis. I ate the entire bowl and it later made me sick as a dog, but I never admitted she was right and she never rubbed in my face how foolish I had been.
It’s any wonder I’m so stubborn, I learned from the best. I can’t count the number times she made me cut my own switch or stand still so she could whoop me with the back of a hairbrush. One time she told me to go cut a switch and I flat out refused. “I ain’t cutting a switch and you can't make me!” She just looked at me with those eyes squinted so tight you had to wonder how she could see out of them; lips drawn up over clinched teeth….needless to say I still got the whoop’n that was coming to me.
Brock and I would spend the night quite a bit in those early days and she’d make us take showers before bed…and then another first thing in the morning. We’d argue about it every time. I just never could understand how I could possibly have gotten dirty just laying there on that egg carton mattress asleep for six hours. She insisted that we sweat in our sleep. Of course I’d come back with some smart mouth comment about how if it didn’t feel like a furnace in there all the time we wouldn’t have to keep having this conversation. Yet there I was taking another shower just a few hours after I’d had the last one.
I think she’s the reason I can’t lie. To this very day some thirty years later, it simply kills me not to tell the truth. PawPaw had this old pump action BB gun he’d let me practice with. You’d have to pump the thing ten times before you could get a shot off. I’d grab that BB gun and head off into the patch of woods there by the house. I was bent on trying to kill a bird though I never succeeded. There’s an old shack up on the far left corner of the property where a couple rusted out cars were stored….they may still be there for all I know. I was up there looking for birds or squirrels and saw this side view mirror hanging from a tree. Now that mirror had been there for as long as I could remember and for some reason on that day, I decided it was time for it to meet its maker. So I pumped that BB gun just like I was taught, lined up the sites just right….and to my complete horror I hit the blasted thing dead center! I remember being so scared. I’d never hit anything I’d aimed at before. I completely understood what I had done. This was not an accident. I pulled the trigger and hit what I was aiming at. Immediately the guilt started eating away at me, yet somehow I made it home without saying a word to anyone. After a bit Mom knew something was up. Finally I just broke down crying over what I’d done; the guilt eating me from the inside out. I called the house and when MawMaw answered the phone, I just blabbed the entire story. I simply couldn’t handle them not knowing how I’d done that on purpose and then went on home like nothing ever happened. I remember she said I’d be punished the next time I came over and I was.
My MawMaw would take us to church. We’d go to Jacksonburg Church of Christ and sit in the balcony. If you got out of line, you could count on getting the fire pinched out of you before you even realized you were goofing off. There wasn’t any talking back or pleading your case, you obeyed and that’s just the way it was. I remember PawPaw disappearing towards the end of service one time. I thought he just had to go to the bathroom, when suddenly I saw him down there heading towards the front pew. I remember the hugs and the tears of joy that followed afterward. It wasn’t till I was much older before I realized exactly what I had been witness to.
Lastly I remember smoking a cigarette in front her. I must have only been 17. I was hanging around on their back porch and decided it was time they knew just who I really was. I was a smoker and wasn’t nothing they could say that could change that. So we are all sitting there; breeze blowing through the trees. I pulled that cigarette out of my pocket, lit that bad boy up like I’d done so many times before, and had me a cigarette with my MawMaw. She never said a word; never acted like it was that big a deal. I hadn’t proved anything other than what kind of idiot I was for thinking that smoking in front of my grandmother was going to be some kind of major victory in my war for independence.
In the Bible we are given countless examples of how the Lord provides us with what we need whether we know what that is or not. We are shown how God looks out for those that believe and always does what’s best for them……the reason I can’t get her recipes right, is because the main ingredient isn’t a special kind of cheese..it’s love. The kind of love that only a MawMaw has for her grandchildren; the same kind of love that would lead God to send his son to the cross so that the rest of us could be free. The reason she made me cut those switches, take those extra showers, and make those stupid mistakes without saying a word, is because she always knew what was best for me even when I didn’t know it myself. For that I will be eternally thankful to her.
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