Something different the next two weeks. I’m scheduling this and the following week’s post ahead of time. In a couple of days, I will be embarking on my annual “road trip with Grandmama.” This time with my youngest grand. For four years in a row, I’ve taken each grandchild, in succession, on a trip to west Tennessee where I grew up. When I tell people about these trips, invariably they say how wonderful it must be for the child. What memories I’m making for them. I hope that’s true. But, these trips are as much for me as they are for the grands. I get to spend uninterrupted hours in the car with them where we can talk about any and every subject under the sun. Listen to Grandmama’s music (classic rock, classic country, Motown, old time gospel . . .). It’s special for me.
My grandparents used to take me along on summer road trips when I was a child. Growing up, my girls would spend at least a month every summer with my parents in Tennessee. A close relationship with grandparents is important, I believe.
So, while I’m on the road, I thought I’d post a couple of journal entries I wrote eight years ago about my grandparents. This week’s is about my grandmothers and next week’s is about my grandfathers.
Published on Mother’s Day, 2016:
Like many small town kids, I didn’t realize growing up how fortunate I was to have extended family close by. Both sets of grandparents lived in our same town and I spent lots of time with them, from exploring Granddaddy’s hardware store to fishing in the pond on Papa’s farm; from making biscuits with Grandmama — using a thimble to cut them out of the dough — to playing cards with Monty (my maternal grandmother).
And at least weekly going to Bozo’s BBQ riding in the backseat of some huge car. Straddling the hump, and squeezed in between Monty and another pleasantly plump lady while the men sat in the front seat, smoking cigarettes and talking sports or politics. If my brother was with us, he got to sit between the men in the front on the long bench seat. My grandmothers were a part of my life almost daily when I was a child. And my maternal grandmother, Monty, lived to be 95 and reigned supreme over the family well into my middle adult years.
My grandmothers were very different from each other. Monty worked until she was 80; although, her job at the bank wasn’t arduous and gave her a front-row seat to everything that went on in town. The bank closed at 3 pm so she had plenty of time for a social life. She was loud, opinionated, and bossy. She loved life and if she had any regrets, she didn’t dwell on them. When I was with her, I was pretty much a free-range child. She assumed I was level-headed enough to keep out of trouble, which wasn’t always true. My Stuart grandmother was a homemaker her entire life. She was old-fashioned, orderly, and had decided views on how well-bred folks behaved. Her opinion of our stature in society was not reflected in our monetary assets, but a lady leaves those concerns to her husband anyway.
All I knew was that both my grandmothers (and grandfathers) loved me unconditionally. They spoiled me past ripe, but not quite rotten. As I got older, I realized they were both far from perfect. And truth be told, my parents might have had an easier marriage had they not had their mothers peering so closely into their personal lives every day. Adult lives are complicated. I realize so much more about many family members now than I ever knew – good, bad, strange, sad, and sweet. Had I known some of it as a child, I maybe wouldn’t have given my parents such a hard time at times. But, probably not.
So, what does this have to do with Mother’s Day? My grandmothers, among many other women in my life, provided me with examples of being a mother and grandmother. Some of those examples I reeled from, swearing I would never do that! Others I could only hope to come close to emulating. I have no idea if that made me a better mother. So much of what we do is in-the-moment and reactive. And, like it or not, much of it is hard-wired into our genes and history. Just as I look in the mirror and see my mother looking back at me, I hear her words coming out of my mouth, and my grandmothers’ expectations bubbling up in my brain. I wish they were all still around to ask them questions I didn’t know I needed answers to when I was young. Who knows – maybe their answer would be the same thing I’d say to my girls: “I have no idea, Sweetie; I’m wingin’ it most of the time.”
Laura
A Light for My Path 
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