Just as quickly, I started to cry.\u00a0 Seriously, is there a pill that controls erratic emotional responses?\u00a0 Someone please send me some.<\/p>\n
For as long as I can remember, my parents would take me, and usually my sisters, to Granny\u2019s the weekend after school was dismissed for summer break, and pick me up the weekend before school was to start again.\u00a0 I thought it was a great reward, but have come to realize that it was my mother\u2019s way of getting a breather.\u00a0 My summers were spent weeding the vegetable garden, fishing with Grandpa, picking strawberries, watching Days of Our Lives and \u00a0wrestling on TV (from the Chase Park Plaza hotel, dontcha know!), and listening to Granny rant about whatever had gotten her dander up.\u00a0 On real hot days, we\u2019d sit under the big tree in the yard on the aluminum folding chairs with the green and white nylon webbing, drinking lemonade or sometimes even a bottle of Double Cola, and talk about the neighbors.<\/p>\n Her name was Florence Opal, but she must not have liked Florence very much because everyone called her Opal. She was born the second of 10 children in 1904, and her personality was typical of someone who survived The Great Depression.\u00a0 She saved everything, from scraps of tin foil, to bread bags, to gift wrap and Christmas bows.\u00a0 She took in ironing for neighbors to bring extra money into the house.\u00a0 She would stand for hours at that ironing board, sprinkling the shirts and slacks with water from an old Vess soda bottle to make steam.\u00a0 My job was to be ready with a hanger when each piece was finished, making sure the creases were just right.\u00a0 She made quilts by hand from children\u2019s clothes long outgrown, grew her own vegetables, and could make one chicken feed 5 people for one supper and 2 dinners.\u00a0 (If you don\u2019t know the difference between a supper and a dinner, call a friend in the Midwest to explain it to you.)<\/p>\n She most certainly wasn\u2019t a saint.\u00a0 She was known to throw back shots of whiskey rather early in the day \u201cfor my nerves\u201d, and she harbored a temper that would make you run for a hiding spot.\u00a0 She was the finest grudge holder I\u2019ve ever known, at one point refusing to speak to her own mother for several years.\u00a0 It\u2019s one of the traits I wish she\u2019d not passed down to me.<\/p>\n Oh, the food.\u00a0 My grandparents ran a tavern in St. Louis for many years, long before I entered the family, and Granny never lost her ability to put a spread on the table.\u00a0 She made a mean fried chicken, wilted salad with hot bacon drippings, mashed potatoes with pan dripping gravy, and an unrivaled spaghetti sauce\u2026.and the cherry pie.\u00a0 She made the best cherry pie ever, and once she knew you liked her cherry pie, she\u2019d make sure there was a fresh one anytime she saw you.<\/p>\n Miss Opal left us in 1997, long after the loss of her husband and two of her three children.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to think that it was a good life, but I\u2019m not sure it was.\u00a0 She worked hard every day, and had very little to show for it.\u00a0 I can only remember Granny going to a restaurant once, on a Mother\u2019s Day when they were visiting us in St. Louis.\u00a0 She never bought herself clothes, wearing housecoats most days, and alternating her 2 church dresses when the need arose.\u00a0 I never saw her in a pair of pants, ever. She didn\u2019t have jewelry, or fancy dishes, or a big house.\u00a0 She never took a vacation.\u00a0 She had no hobbies that I know of, and I only hope she enjoyed the cooking and canning and sewing that she did every day.\u00a0 The last few months of her life were spent in a nursing home, which provided more medical supervision, but the loss of her familiar surroundings took what was left of her memory and independence.\u00a0 I remember thinking when she died that she deserved to leave this earth with more dignity than she did, and that was the most painful part.<\/p>\n The tears are still a mystery.\u00a0 Part melancholy, part guilt over not knowing her more, part realization that someday, my grandchildren will be thinking about something they miss about me.\u00a0 It certainly won\u2019t be my cherry pie, because of all the things Miss Opal taught me, it wasn\u2019t how to bake a pie or fry a chicken.\u00a0 I got her temper and her wicked tongue, but not her cooking skill.\u00a0 God\u2019s funny like that.<\/p>\n I hope Granny is at rest now, reunited with her husband and all her children.\u00a0 If I had one more day with her, I\u2019d ask her about her happiest days, and regrets she had, and what it was like to live through the Depression\u2026.and I\u2019d let her know I don\u2019t even bother eating cherry pie anymore, because it never tastes the way it should.<\/p>\n My little home office is not really an office.\u00a0 It\u2019s a small rectangle on one side of our loft bedroom, and it consists of an old kitchen table and a 1 drawer filing cabinet.\u00a0 It\u2019s functional, though, and the placement … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"..\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog.thekarmafarmer.com\/2011\/01\/miss-opal-217x300.jpg\" "\\"Miss")
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