Reflections

Every October, I am reminded about a significant event that happened in my young married life. Indulge me for a moment. I grew up in a house with a patient mother and an aging grandmother who ran a country store. On a Wednesday night, she attended midweek bible study, left with a headache, went home and sat on the bed with a beet red look upon her face. She lost her speech before she was taken to the hospital.  A North Carolina Fall Season Laying on the hospital bed, her eyes became paralyzed staring at the ceiling. Still speechless we all spoke to her as thought she could her us. I guess I won't know until heaven if she heard our departing words. Slowly the monitors began to loose the beat; and then Dr. Edwards said "She's gone". Grandmaw was the first close person in my life to leave this earth.  The reason I am posting this is because I remember the day of her memorial. A classic Carolina fall day. Perfect temperature. The leaves were rich ...

Miss Ella Reading Her Bible at the Store. Grandmaw, as we called her, was born March 21, 1908. I think about her every spring as we leave winter and enter the budding spring. Living the unique life of having your grandmother sharing a house with your parents creates a special experience for a young man. I understood homemade biscuits, daily. I enjoyed the pride she took in making my bed sheets so taut on Sunday afternoons. She ran a country store just down the street from our house. Everyday around 7:15 she would walk down the street to work; rain or shine. This continued until she was 87.   She warmed the little German lap sided building with wood supplied by the neighboring lumber company. It was a unique environment where you drank sodas from a bottle and occasionally you’d pour Planter’s peanuts into a coke. There was a spittoon beside the cast iron wood stove. Neighbors, farmers and church goers would gather to talk about the weather, crops and community happenings. ...