THEN and NOW

I have fond and vivid memories of my great grandparents, Mammy and Pappy. They lived in the country on a dirt road and knew everyone who lived on their road (all three or four of them). I remember their black dog, “Blacky“, Mammy’s bonnets and Pappy’s blue jean overalls. I remember them huddled around the space heater in their bedroom in the wintertime. The room was so hot you felt like you were going to suffocate but didn’t dare walk out of it and into another room because you knew the temperature would drop instantly by at least 50 degrees. I remember them huddled under the shade of an old oak tree in the summertime visiting with family, slicing and serving fresh peaches and watermelon. I remember some of their peculiarities, like the way they grocery shopped together: each pushing separate buggies, buying separate food, paying for it with separate money, and then going home and cooking separate meals. I remember the storm pit and the frightening evening we spent in it during Hurricane Camille. (not a fond memory). And I also remember Mammy’s flower garden…

Every spring she planted a flower garden in her front yard. She toiled and sweated preparing this garden: tilling, planting, watering, and fertilizing. Her efforts produced row after row of many different varieties of beautiful and fragrant flowers planted in no particular order. Just as a vegetable garden is prepared with space to walk in between each row for the picking and gathering of the produce, this garden was also prepared for walking through, not for the picking and gathering (heavens no) but for the admiring and smelling of the fruits of her labor. And this was where you would find her on any given summer day as she continued toiling and sweating in her garden protecting it from the overtake of weeds and “critters“.


I remember THEN wondering WHY she went to all this trouble. All this hard work and nothing to show for it in the end, no fresh vegetables canned or frozen to enjoy throughout the winter. There were no eatable flowers in our salad or frozen in our ice cubes. Who was going to see them? The only others who traveled this road were the few that lived on it and some that were very, very lost. These flowers were not allowed to be picked, so there were no fresh bouquets scattered throughout the house, not even on special occasions. No, they were for the garden only. So, again, why, did she do this over and over again every year?

I purchased a greeting card recently with a poem printed on it written by Helen Steiner Rice.

Among the Flowers

Sometimes when faith is running low
And I cannot fathom why things are so.
I walk among the flowers that grow
And learn the answers to all I would know-
For among my flowers I have come to see
Life’s miracles and mystery.

This card has special meaning to me and a story behind it that I will possibly share at some time in the future, but for NOW, many, many years later, Mammy, I possibly know WHY!