Out of Context: The Importance of Grandmothers

What children need most are the essentials that grandparents provide in abundance. They give unconditional love, kindness, patience, humor, comfort, lessons in life. And, most importantly, cookies. ~Rudy Giuliani

Grandmothers traditionally hold a very special place in the heart of a child, even after the child grows into adulthood.

My grandmothers were builders of my foundation and I was lucky enough to be close to them in my life.

MAMAW

Grandma Hammond

My maternal grandmother was Dorothy “Dot” Hammond. I knew her as Mamaw. My early childhood was spent being spoiled to perfection by her. In her home, her grandchildren could do no wrong, which gave the grandkids a safe haven from the consequences of our bratty and often outlandish behavior (for example, I set some magazines on fire and from my recollection, my grandma saved my rear from being switched beyond recognition).

My Mamaw (when using my formal register, I called her Grandma Hammond) spoiled the grandkids every chance she got, which was normally while our mothers were at work during the summer. She could not play with us in the traditional sense of playing due to various illnesses, but there was climbing on her lazy boy chair to watch Wheel of Fortune, wrestling (including The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling), and Days of Our Lives. I learned to spell, talk pre-fight smack, and be a drama queen all on the arm of that chair.

She took us to Vacation Bible School and was very proud of her “babies.” I do, however, wonder how she felt the day that I decided to sing “Super Freak” by Rick James when the minister asked us to “sing the praises of the Lord.” I was four, so it did not occur to me that the Lord or the Southern Baptist congregation may not have an appreciation for the line, “She’s a very kinky girl…” My mother was swift to administer the dreaded “church pinch” and evil eye, so I was never able to give the church a full performance.

Whenever we had to go to the Sunflower grocery store with Mamaw, she would always buy us a Whatchamacallit. I know that I am deeply Southern, but that isn’t just a phrase. It was the most delicious piece of chocolate covered goodness that ever existed. The best part was that it didn’t matter what our mothers had dictated to her about our diet for that day. We were going to get what we wanted because we were the grand-babies. It was that simple.

She was funny, too. She would do silly things like stick out her dentures and shake them at us. Yet, my favorite thing that she would do was an act after eating at the catfish place. My Mamaw loved to eat frog legs. Once we were home, she would call us into her room and tell us that she couldn’t sleep because the frog legs were making her jump. Then, she would jerk her body like something was trying to lunge out of her belly. I personally found this terrifying and was probably an adult before I determined that fried frog legs had no such power.

The greatest gift that I learned from my Mamaw was loyalty. She was a spit-fire, especially when holding a broom and hollering out, “Damn it all to hell!” However, she truly believed that you were to love Jesus and never turn on your family.

She passed on January 4, 1997. She was only 64 years old.

G-ma

G-ma

My paternal grandmother was a whole other breed of Southern grandma. I also spent a great deal of time with her during the weekends and summers because my father often had to work during his visitation. 

Yes, G-ma earned her moniker by acting much like this. 

Whereas my Mamaw was always having an asthma attack of sorts, my G-ma was always chain smoking.

G-ma was short for Gun-Ma due to her job as a bondsman and how her large gun looked against her 4’11” frame. It is said that she chased one of her bails down an alley when he was trying to skip out of town with her gun focused on his back. She was the grandmother that had wild stories from her past and some less-than-traditional ideas about the universe (Aliens and voodoo were real).

He is really holding a switch. 

She was the most independent, hard-headed, and hard-loving person that I had ever known. Of course she spoiled me to some degree when I was little, but she was also quick to come after me with a switch. She could yield a switch like a Samurai; she was stealth, swift, and left you begging for mercy. I had developed what I thought was a smart tactic; I began to scurry up the Magnolia tree to get away from these switchings. She would open the door, wave her twig of doom at me, and say, “You have to come down sometime.” After she tired of me hiding in the tree, she would hide her switch and come sweetly to the door offering ice cream. I fell for it every single time and as soon as I stepped over the threshold, the switching commenced. She did, however, give me my ice cream.

As an adult, my G-ma became my best friend. I called her almost every day. She was funny and never judged me; although she did gossip about me to the rest of the family because that is just what Southern women do. Whenever my life would fall apart (and that happened all too frequently in my twenties), I could go to my grandmother’s house and spend a couple of weeks getting perspective, love, sweet tea, and chocolate pie.

She ran her own business until she became ill.  Ann Cornelison Miller was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer (in her liver, but not liver cancer) and passed nine weeks later on January 2, 2011. Telling her goodbye before she passed (and was still lucid) was the hardest moment of my life. I cherish our last conversation greatly, but I still feel the loss of her presence daily.

She taught me the importance of being able to take care of yourself and how to love unconditionally.

My mother, step-father, and I moved six hours away when I was 9. This move brought us to our home, but took me away from regular visits with my grandmothers.

Shortly after we moved to Little Rock, my pregnant mother and I met a lovely woman who lived next door. She was a widow and had lost her only child in a plane crash. I was a rowdy tom-boy who was more than jealous about the impending life-change of a baby sister. My mother knew no-one and my dad was busy trying to start his business. She came over with some pie and that started a 26 year relationship.

Granberry

She quickly became my mother’s best friend. For over two decades, they shared wine and conversation every afternoon. My middle sister’s first outing was to her house. She became our surrogate grandmother.

She was educated, liberal, and witty beyond compare. She did spend a great deal of time with me during those years. She would walk with me in the woods behind our house, she would talk to me about Arkansas history, she let me go to her book-filled office and bang on her type-writer, and she would listen while providing subtle advice.

After about a year, she let me borrow her set of Anne of Green Gables. I read those books for so long that she eventually had to repossess them. She was an English teacher prior to retirement, so it is absolutely perfect that the woman that introduced me to my love of reading inadvertently led me down the same career path that she choose.

Choose not to focus on the '90's fashion, but rather the happy little girl in the chair at her Granberry's house. 

For my sisters, she was so much more. My sisters do not remember my maternal grandmother and their paternal grandmother, who also lived hours away, was not very involved in their upbringing. They did not have biologically what I had had.

Granberry gave them that openly and daily. There is never a time in their life that they don’t recall running to her house next door for games, conversation, ice cream, and "grandma" time.

She was very sweetly patting my angry baby sister's knee to help calm her. 

Evalena Berry passed away at the age of 93 on May 15, 2014.  

My heart ached. Still, no matter my own sadness, I hurt far more for my sisters. I knew the pain that they were feeling and what that loss meant for them.  Their grandmother was gone. That relationship will never be replicated in the same way and the lessons learned from their surrogate grandmother will stay for a life-time. I hurt for my mother, as well, because she lost the truest and dearest friend of her life.

On the day of her visitation, I signed the traditional book. This was probably the most painstaking moment for me personally. Granberry had a river house on the Little Red River. We spent many holidays there. She would always have a guest book by the door and it was required that you signed it. The significance of that was lost on me until the moment that I was signing one of her guest books for the last time.

I looked at my sisters and mother – all trying to stay composed in their own way. I had no exact comfort to offer and none of us like to be held when we are trying not to cry. I had no magic words to alleviate their pain from experiencing the grief at the loss of a grandmother. It is an individual experience and in most cases, it is not an easy one.

However, I know something that my sisters have yet to learn.

Honey

They will experience the love of a grandmother again when they see our mother with their own child. My mother and I are as different as silk and wool and we work each other’s nerves like no other. Still, she and my son have a special bond; it is a bond much like what I had with each of my grandmothers, yet unique in its own way. Their connection is strong. They share little secrets, tell jokes, and create fantasy worlds with dirt, wood, and paint. My son refers to her as, “My Honey” and is not above kicking me out of their house so that he can get properly spoiled by her, as all children should. 

This is what brings the circle to close for me and has given me peace. 

Honey and Roo