3 a.m.

At 3am, 49 year old me was ironing my shirt for my Momma’s funeral. In my head, 12 year old me was listening to her tell me how to do it properly. 

Momma had a lady named Myrtle do her ironing when we were younger.  I once asked why Myrtle couldn’t just do my ironing too and she told me that I needed to learn how to do things for myself.  Typical.

Momma also had a house lady named Marva.  We were not rich.  Momma hired these nice ladies because she enjoyed their company and the places they filled in gave her more time with us.  Even with Marva and Myrtle in place, we never got out of chores or duties.  Never.  She was the ultimate teacher.

So as I am standing there crying and ironing, I realized how much I was going to find myself reliving so many things she taught me.  Every time I cook, she will be there looking over my shoulder.  She could throw some stuff in a pot and it would be the best casserole ever.  She could never duplicate it again but that is the way it is with things and people like that.  We are all made of the same ingredients but different.

She permeated every aspect of everything.  I described her as Martha Stewart on steroids.  She cleaned with straight bleach.  She could make anything. She could make anything grow.  “Not doing something” was not in her vocabulary.  Momma grew up the life of a gypsy.  Our grandfather moved from place to place.  At one point, they lived in the old Sample House which now has fame as Latta Plantation.  They ran a boarding house and with 8 kids in one house at one time-boarding house rules ran the table.  She was raised to be a survivor.

And today, the bitterest and coldest of days, we have to tell her goodbye. 

Momma fought hard to go.  Even in her elephant-drugged induced state, she tried to talk, to do….to tell US how to do things.  She was stubborn.

When we were younger, we had an uncle who argued and fought with one of our aunts.  In true redneck fashion (so the story goes) Momma and our aunt jumped him physically.  They had had enough….one on his back-one on his front and they beat the crap out of him.  When the police arrived, he begged them to haul him off so Momma and my aunt couldn’t get a’hold of him again.

Momma could go from being the most compassionate saint in the world to being the most spiteful.  She was human.  She wielded the latter like a warrior.  Anyone who crossed her was not immune from her wrath.  When times get hard to deal with, I feel like I have an ace card up my sleeve.  She is the cloth from which my sister and I are woven from.  As my friend Kimball so eloquently said “Never forget: you are a thread from that same cloth and your children and grand children are too.”. 

We have so many stories of her life and so many memories to provide some comfort in the days to come.
Thank you for letting me share just a small part of her.