This is an activity that my father and other family members and I have been known to do on occasion. Most of the time it only spurs conversations that the members of the nostalgia party would be interested in. Today, however, I was struck with a thought that might be a little more universal.
Tucked into my grandfather's old bible was some yellowed letters written by his pastor, a few comic clippings from various newspapers and other random roadsigns you'll find on memory lane. The thing that fluttered out from among its pages that caused me pause was a picture of my grandmother.
I never knew my grandfather on my dad's side. He died many years before I was born and is not even spoken of very much amongst my family members. He and my father had a tumultuous relationship during my father's youth and I've only ever caught glimpses into the man that made the man that made me.
My grandmother, on the other hand, is a completely different story. She lived within 6 blocks of every place I lived before I grew up and moved away from home. And for most of my life, she lived across the street. I could see her house from my bedroom window. Claire Morris was her name if you don't want to go by what my brothers and I called her, Mammaw (or Mammaw Claire if we were speaking about her in the third person).
Don't get me wrong, my parents raised us. But Mammaw was always across the street and we spent many days hanging out over at her house, playing in the basement and out on the seemingly hundred year old swing set in her back yard.
Mammaw was a kind and giving old bird and was unintentionally hilarious. But, she had her quirks. She smoked Camel non-filters and drank Jim Beam almost up until the day she died at the age of 88 in 2006.
Her death was hard on me, as is the passing of any grandparent is on a grandchild. Her service was one of the few times in my life I've seen my father cry and that's an image I'll never forget.
But, as I picked her picture up off of the table top this afternoon I smiled. I realized that her memory had become a happy one for me, no longer a point of sadness. I remembered her for calling the radio and "idiot box" and referring to my uncle as being "rather large in girth." I remembered her for the half stale spearmint gum she always had in her purse and those gross, sugar coated orange slice candies in a bowl on her counter. I remembered the popsicles she always had in her fridge and the living room in her house that nobody had set foot in for years.
Mammaw's freezer was old and as such had to be defrosted regularly. In the automatic ice box, a few times a year, was a giant block of ice that had been individual cubes at one point but had melted and refrozen enough times that it had become one solid block of ice that was completely useless for her Jim Beam. As children, we would take this block of ice out to her black tar driveway and smack it around with hockey sticks as it melted on the million degree blacktop. Sometimes it's the simple things in life.
I remembered Mammaw for how she took care of my brothers and our friends. She was even referred to as Mammaw by my best childhood friend. He and his girlfriend went to visit her in Florida one spring break without any of our actually family members even being there.
She was Mammaw Claire, everyone's Mammaw.
As I looked at the picture of Mammaw, yellowed and curled with age, I remembered all of the great things about her and the great times we had at her house and I smiled. The memory of her death is still painful but the memories that I have of her are overall positive. At this moment, I wondered when that paradigm had shifted. When did the mention of my grandmother spur memories of the good times and not memories of her passing?
Apparently it's true that time heals all wounds. I'm glad that I can think of her and remember all the wonderful memories I have of her without first thinking about how she is no longer around to help create new memories. And, it gives me hope and solace that any trials life throws at us, given enough time, will become memories without pain.
Hopefully the pain from all the struggles we go through on a daily basis will eventually fade and leave behind only the happy memories of the people we love whom have endured the hardships with us.
Claire McGannon Morris
1917-2006
RIP
I Love You Mammaw
-Cody
