Memories of Mama...and Things She Passed Down to Me

One of my daughters is a blogger and she recently started a “Wednesday Walk Down Memory Lane” addition on her blogsite, and she challenged other bloggers to write down some of their memories on Wednesdays and add them to their blogs, or link them to hers. She also encourages them to print them out every week so that they can become a book of memories to give to their children someday. This same daughter has always kept a journal and has also written a book that was recently published. She finds it easy to express herself through writing. This may be something that runs in our family.

I also enjoy writing down memories, or things that are in my heart or on my mind. I find that it is a creative outlet for me and maybe even a way to minister to others. I don’t worry about correct grammar, spelling or sentence structure,…I just let it flow and then I have my husband proof read it and he is more than happy to correct any major mistakes!

I think some people would like to write but they think they don’t have the time, or the ability, or they think that nobody would be interested in what they have to say. I would like to challenge those people to just start somewhere and write something to see if it unleashes something inside and see if it doesn’t come along easier than they think. Perhaps like me, you might find out that it is in your blood and has been passed down to you. (:>)

When I was a child my mother only had one arm, as she had been in a car accident and lost her right arm before three of her four children were born. She had been right handed, so she had to learn to do everything with her left hand. I imagine that this was a very hard thing to do, but she had no choice, so she relearned everything from handwriting to tying her shoes, to diapering a baby with only one hand. She often used a typewriter when writing letters and I always admired the way she didn’t let her handicap alter her life if she could find another way to accomplish a task.

I would sit with her and watch her type letters to her family and friends who lived in Texas where she grew up. She loved to keep in touch with them since she had moved from Texas to California. Writing to her loved ones was something she enjoyed. I would get a pad of paper and a pencil and write to them too, and I think this is when I discovered that I liked to write. Mama would help me and it was a special time for the two of us. Over the years we enjoyed writing Christmas letters and addressing cards together, and this is something I love to do to this day. It evokes memories of mama for me. We would string the cards we received around a doorway, or across the front room window. I loved all of the pretty pictures on the cards, and especially liked the ones of baby Jesus in the manger. I liked to read the friendly replies we received in response to our letters.

When was the last time you sat and wrote a letter to a friend? Maybe you should do that today. I am sure that it would be appreciated and maybe even be a blessing to someone who could use some encouragement. Mama was good at encouraging others even though she had a hard life raising a family with no help from a husband most of that time. She was faced with many challenges, but with God’s help she faced them with faith and courage.

Back then the cars gear shifts were on the floor and since my mom lost her right arm she had to relearn how to drive a stick shift, letting go of the steering wheel, reaching over with her left arm to shift the gears. Now I think the hardest thing for me to do after a car accident had claimed my arm,… and almost taken my life, would be to even get inside another car, let alone learning to drive again with only one arm, but my mother had fortitude and she gave everything a try. It did become easier when they made automatic transmissions and she didn’t have to shift the gears, and when someone also attached a little knob on the steering wheel that made it easier for her to turn the car around and easier to crank the steering wheel as she backed into a curbside parking place etc.

When I was a child I didn’t always appreciate my mama, and I took for granted much of what she did for me. But as I became a mom and was caring for my own children, I often stopped and wondered how my mama would have done the task I was doing when she only had the one arm? I still do that, and I fondly remember all of her efforts that made my childhood a happy one.
Kneeling by the bed or sofa, mama and I would pray for our needs, and for the needs of others, and when we were done she would often times have tears in her eyes that she wiped away, but there was always a peaceful smile on her face even though the tears were there. I know that same peace that comes from carrying burdens to the Lord and leaving them there,…and I thank God for a mama who taught me to do that.

It has been over twenty years since my mama went to be with Jesus but what she taught me lives on. I love to think back and remember her, and there is hardly a day that goes by that I don’t have some special memory of her. I am glad my daughter challenged me to write these memories down today. It does my heart good to share them too. Just writing down my feelings revives something inside of me. I think God brings these things to my mind and wants me to count them as blessings in my life.

How about you? Do you have a blessing to share with others? Some memory, some feeling that needs to be unleashed? Why not give it a try? Walk down memory lane and write it down. Share it with others and be a blessing,…and give glory to God. And, if you have some burden in your life or a handicap that you face everyday, step out in faith as my mama did and trust God to get you through it, one day at a time. Who knows, maybe you have a child who is watching you and learning from your example!

Grandma's Hands

Recently I read a little story titled "Grandma's Hands" and it touched me. It had a picture along with the story, of several generations of female hands in a circle, telling a story all it's own.

I look at my hands and think how old they are looking. I have thought back to the days when they were pretty, with long painted fingernails at the end of each finger. I used to be proud of my hands,...and was complimented on them lots of times, and was told that I had "pretty nails". (Especially when I was working at a jewelry store for several years and I spent time caring for my hands more because I had to show jewelry and try on rings for people.)

I think back further, to my hands as a child when I used to have excema rash on my hands and I remember how they would itch so badly, and I would scratch them and wring them together so much that they would crack and bleed and make my life so miserable until they would heal. They were not a pretty sight and I was ashamed for people to see them, so I would often stick them in my pockets and try to hide them.

I would have "flair ups" throughout the years with the rash on my hands, and especially during the years when my three girls were babies and I would rinse their dirty diapers out in the toilet and then constantly be washing my hands after each diaper change. Turning little night gowns and socks, and baby clothes right-side out while folding laundry would be agony to my cracked, sore fingers. I would slather vaseline liberally over my hands again and again to keep them lubricated so that I could bend my fingers and move my hands enough to complete my "daily duties" around the house. (I think every door knob was covered with a coating of vaseline back then, as well as the steering wheel of my car!) Ha!

These flair ups and outbreaks on my hands continued for years and years as I am sure even my girls can remember. And even as I type this, I have a couple of places on my fingers that are red and itchy, from washing and cutting up vegetables just last night.

Maybe these problems with my hands have been a little "thorn in my flesh to keep me humble?" I don't know. But I am thankful that I have two hands,...and I have always been thankful since I grew up with a mom that only had one arm and one hand! She was in a car accident before three of her four children were born and she lost her right arm. She had been right handed so she had to learn to do everything with her left arm. Mom always had such fortitude,...and she worked so hard with that one arm.

That leads me to another story. My friend Kathy who lived in Derby, went to see my mom when she was in California visiting her mom one time. When Kathy got back to town she said an interesting thing. She said,..."your hands look like your mom's hand". I looked down at my hands when she said that, and I agreed,...they did look like mom's. Mom only had her left hand, but it is my right hand that especially looks like my mom's. The same callouses from holding pencils too tight, and the fingers are shaped the same. Since my friend Kathy said that to me I have often looked down at my hand and thought of my mother.

Over the years when my girls were little I would put my right hand behind my back and try to do normal things with only one hand. Things that my mom would have had to do, like changing a diaper, or washing dishes in the sink, or pulling up a zipper, or tying a shoe. I suddenly would have new compassion and admiration for my mom,...and just how hard her life must have been, raising 4 kids alone with only one arm, and one hand. A couple of years back when I broke my right elbow I did it again,....I thought , "how did mom ever do all that she had to do, with only one arm?"

Yet, as I look back and think about it, everything did get done. All of the important things! She could still touch my face and dry my tears. She would wrap her arm around me and draw me to herself and provide me with comfort and safety. And she would point that finger towards me in warning when I needed correction, and still deliver a swat or two when I needed it. That left hand typed letters to her family in Texas, and to her many friends over the years, and addressed many Christmas cards. And it also steered our car to the little white steepled church year after year. We attended Siver Acres Community Church, in Santa Ana, California. I love those memories of being in that church Sunday after Sunday, and Wednesdays too, with my mama.

I liked the nap time stories my Mom would tell me, about growing up on a farm and how she would have to help make butter, and pick cotton, and work hard with her hands, just like her brothers did, and like her sister Ethel did, even though Ethel was 16 years older than she was. She'd tell me about washing their clothes on a wash board and having to wring them out and hang them up to dry. And how she learned to kill chickens and pluck them and cut them up for dinner. I remember falling off to sleep as she went on and on with her childhood tales of growing up on a farm in Merkel, Texas.

Long ago and far away are those times, but my mom is as close to my heart as ever.
I don't dwell on the memories of her in the nursing homes, but on the happy years with her when I was growing up.

When I looked at the photo of the hands, and read the story that was with it, I was just moved in my spirit. I don't have any memories of my grandma, and I know my girls' memories with their Grandma Tate are few, but I still hold dear MY memories of her with my girls.

She did love them so much, and she kissed on their little chubby cheeks, as they wrapped their chubby little arms around her neck. She had a comfy lap to crawl up into, and an ample bossom to nestle against as she would draw them close to her heart with her one arm. She always wore lipstick, (just like I do), and when she'd give my girls kisses, she would always leave her mark! (:>)

Mom always had a big purse with loose change inside, and she'd give my kids nickels, dimes and quarters,...and sticks of gum. All of her grandbabies would ask for gum when they would see her, and so we nicknamed her "Grandma Gum!", cuz that's what the kids would say when they would see her.

She would take a hold of their sweet little hands and kiss them and tell the girls that she loved them. And she would sing "Jesus loves me" to them, and "Jesus loves the little children" too. All too soon she got feeble and weak and she spent way too many years in nursing homes, and that is so sad. But through all of our long distance phone conversations throughout the years, she kept up with us, and I am sure she smiled when I would tell her all about my girls.

The very best thing is that we will all be reunited together in heaven with Jesus someday, and we will get to spend all of eternity with her. The Lord will let my girls see the true heart of their dear Grandma Margie. And since she will be perfect in heaven and have both of her hands in her spiritual, glorified body, all of us girls can join hands and form a cirle of love.
We can even let our boys in the circle as we praise the Lord together forever more!!!!!!

We should take a picture of our hands someday when we are together, I'll put my right hand in, in memory of mom, since that is the one that looks like hers, and then my left one for myself, and then my girls and their girls. This can be our own "Grandma's Hands" story.

Before too many more years pass by, my girls might be grandmas too, and they will have their stories to tell. Isn't it great to think how the love we hold in our hearts just keeps getting passed down through the generations? Take a few moments to picture your "Grandma's Hands", and think of all of the ways she has touched your lives,....and pass the stories on, so Grandma can live forever in your hearts and in the hearts of her descendants.