Today I celebrate my other grandmother. My mom’s mom. She died while I was in grade school. I recall her being very nice and grandmotherly, even if she didn’t have a whole lot of time for me specifically. After all, she gave birth to more than a dozen kids, and raised those who survived to be very good people. I don’t know a whole lot about her, but I know she worked hard, took care of her kids, and helped support the family by working side by side with my grandpa. Garden, butchering, canning, you name it, she did it. There are days I’d like to be like her, a whole passel of kids running around, existing day to day to survive, no worries about food shortages or higher prices, you just put in a few more crops, were more judicial about the ones you had, put more back for the winter and were more conscientious about it all. It’s the yearning for a simpler time, I guess. When you did what you had to do to get by, and no one complained about it, because they had just as many kids as you did, just as little money, and when going to town was a big deal, well let’s just say it was all a simpler time and there are days, I wish I could be there, instead of here. Feel what it was like to stand in her shoes, know what a big, loving family I was raising and the legacy I would leave behind.
