Dear Reader:
This quote from Madeleine L’Engle made me pause and reflect on all the stages of my life, but especially my childhood, yesterday.
As I studied photos of my childhood, from old, dusty albums, I realized that some of my pre-conceived remembrances of certain parts of it were actually mis-conceived.
The picture above is of myself and my siblings, Ben and David…and my Grandmother Wilson in the background…mother’s mother. The cotton farmer’s wife and early graduate of Erskine Women’s College…the keeper of stories.
It seems like so many of my earliest childhood memories deal with the death of my father, Grandfather Wilson, and the loss of my mother’s left hand to cancer…all arriving within the same year… weeks and months apart.
Yet when I look at the picture now of the three of us with Grandmother Wilson… taken about a year and a half following the sudden and unexpected tragedies…everything looks normal. Grandmother Wilson has a little proud smile on her face and we all seem quite secure and cared for…
All my aunts and uncles, on both sides of the family, stepped up to the plate following so much loss in one family in such a short period of time.
My Aunt Eva, mother’s sister, took us under her wings and I remember spending time with them on their farm house outside Simpsonville…with my cousins, her two sons, Bobby and Don. Again…we appear well-adjusted and happy.
It was these (following) two pictures, however, that provided an “aha” moment for me in my recollections of the most turbulent time in my family’s history. (1954)
Even though this first picture is somewhat “fuzzy”…you can see that mother has a sling on her arm…it had just been amputated due to bone cancer. (Like me, before my second chemo treatment when I got my hairdresser to go ahead and shave my head, mother had her beautiful long hair cut before her surgery so she could handle it better with just one hand. In one year her hair turned completely gray…definitely prematurely…but it was a beautiful gray as she got older.)
The one thing I remember about mother…is that she always dressed “to the hilt.” She never, ever (in my entire life) looked slouchy or sloppy. And she dressed us all the same way. Amazing woman.
And now for the photo that showed me where I got my faith from…By the date on the picture…it has been three months since the amputation…mother was wearing a fitted “sock” on her arm where the hand was removed (she had not even been fitted for a prosthesis yet.)
It is the expression on her face that stunned me and my memory of this period. She is smiling…not a forced smile…but a very natural confident one..with me in one of my many pretty dresses that I wore on a daily basis. (As a little girl I was rarely “shot” in a photo with pants on. Interesting?)
Now, as an adult, looking back on this time….I finally see mother as she was…a woman of quiet faith and strong courage...the same woman who gave me life and her strong sense of faith and courage to take with me through my own journey. What better gifts can we receive?
So until tomorrow…Let us never forget the people around us who made us who we are today and thank them each day in thought and prayer for helping define the person we are becoming.
” Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh
*Brooke sent this photo of her young adoring neighbors….love it! And they all love “Miss B”!
*God’s Wink came to me yesterday on the anniversary of September 11 in a most beautiful way. A “renegade” moon flower vine decided to climb a flag pole rather than a bench leg and this was what I saw last evening.
ichaseferalcats
John Turner
Legally Ohm
Becky Dingle
I agree, our parents give us all the foundation we need to live a goid life and be good people. Not a day goes by that I don’t misd my Mother and Father and all I have is fond memories. I know I was disciplined when I was young but it taught me the lessons I needed to learn. My mother never worked a job other than take care of us kids the three of us. I had two Sisters and I was the baby of the family. Now I am the only one left. I lost one Sister to cancer and another to heart disease and she never smoked or did anything bad for her. She developed diabetes snd then had a small stroke caused by a bad heart valve. Due to the diabetes, her Dr said she wouldn’t survive a standard open heart surgery. We took her to the medical University where they had a procedure we here they could repaint the valve through an artery snd a small incision between two ribs. But the new health care known as Obama Care, had rules and guidelines and due to the stroke and her diabetes, she didn’t fall eithin the Government guidelines of a certs in amount of improvement of the quality of life. So I had the pleasure of watching the horror of what happens to a person with a failing heart valve. I had to wstvh her slowly fall into death swollen and discolored. I only left her for two days and thst was because my Son was being married and I was his best man. The morning after the wedding as we were p as cking to rush back home my nephew who came from Atlanta to stay with her Called me to tell me she had passed. I wasn’t allowed yo see her until dhe was finish prepared by the funeral home. Missing seeing her by mere minutes even though my Nephew begged them to wait half an hour so I could get there. So I am alone now. Just good memories that will never fade away in my mind.
I have my children and Grandson though snd of course my Wife. So I have a family but now I am the Patriarch of the family now eith a nephew and two nieces as well and their children and my nephew also has a Grand Daughter. And of course God who walks with me everyday! Just thought I would share some of my life with you too. Hope you don’t mind.
Becky,
When I count my blessing I thank God that I was born in Boiling Springs NC a little tiny college town where everyone knew my name, that I was born to Karl and Rachel Hedrick, the 6th child in a family where faith (and fussing) were such a big part of my life, that I had 5 siblings who helped make me the person that I am today, that I attended an elementary school where all the teachers were members of my church, that when I went to college there was an article “Number 6 comes to GWC” (mortified me at the time), a place that everyone knew all about you and really cared about you, that when I got married the church was packed b/c they had known me all my life, but they also wanted to see the “outsider” that was takikng me away, that I moved to another wonderful place and made new friends, found a new church, started a career, raised my family and not that I am this point in my life, I feel so blessed for any “problems” that I encountered on the way b/c they helped to make me into the person God intended for me to be. Love your blog…it means so much.
I love you and still so sad today didn’t work out….but we will get Ben in his new church as a member and another day awaits us having time to just be us…we are blessed at this time in our lives…I feel sometimes that I have to work extra hard to find something to worry about!
What a beautiful, strong woman your mother must have been. You have her strength and her smile!
I wish….but hope I at least got some.