A Christmas With Ma'mee

If you look close you can see that her brooch is a picture of Pa'pee.

There was a lighted wreath hanging on the door adorned with colorful lights that marked the birth of Grandma’s Savoir.  It was our last stop on our Christmas journey.  We had left Camden County to drive to Dade to be with family, then on to Dallas to visit Grandma who just turned 97 on the 23^rd of December.  I was eager to see her again.  Nothing sweeter than being “liked minded” with someone who is 97 and better yet if that person is someone you treasure. 

She met us at the door with such elation that I shed a tear before entering in her arms.  “This is the best Christmas ever,” she sang.  “You are never going to believe who I had dinner with today?  Kevin, your Dad came here and he threw his arms around my neck and just loved on me!” 

We had just barely taken off our coats, set down the food we brought her, and delivered her present before she pulled us into a group hug and held our hands tightly.  “There has been an answer to prayer.  What we have been praying for all along.  And now we just got to keep on praying that they will all come together again.  God is so good.  Everyone is so good to me.  What a blessed day, the best Christmas I have ever had!”

Now I don’t have time to tell the story that led up to this so you will just have to believe me when I say that it was truly a miracle.  I promise to write about it another time, but the stories that came from her that Christmas afternoon will forever be written on my heart and one in particular stood out because of the “ole way determination”  of Grandma’s mother, Mary Rebecca who Grandma affectionately called Ma’mee. 

After much talk of our “miracle” I got to prodding about in Grandma’s memory banks.  I asked her what her favorite Christmas memory was and I watched as that question took her back through to a time that was unlike any I have encountered.  “Well…let’s see.  Ma’mee made sure we all had a present.  Pa’pee went to the woods and cut down a cedar and then we made paper chains.  We colored the paper with our crayons then glued the strips together with paste made with flour and water.  That is all that was on the tree except the star on top.  No lights or bulbs, no one had those things back then.  I thought the tree was beautiful.  Ma’mee made a special dinner and we just had family time”. 

“That is what this country needs now, more family time.”  Grandma leaned back into that memory and continued, “My mother was something.  I was her little girl, always hanging on to her.  I wasn’t a tomboy like Lucille.  I wanted to stay by Ma’mee all the time.  She was like a general keeping us all in line and making sure things ran smoothly.  Pa’pee was a carpenter but he also farmed the 200 acres we had.  Ma’mee kept my older brothers busy about the work of the farm.  Kept us feed, washed our clothes by hand and never complained.” 

The countenance on Grandma’s face abruptly changed from pure contentment to sheer dread.  An eerie quietness entered the room.  We set facing her and waited for her to pull through from the memory.  I immediately felt terrible…like I had cause some hurtful thought to reenter her mind and bring back to the forefront a forgotten agony that had held much power over her entire being. 

“We had a large dinning table in the kitchen.  Ma’mee’s doctor had asked a doctor out of Springfield to come and assist him in the surgery.  She had breast cancer.  She let us feel the knot on her right breast.”  Grandma touched hers as if she was touching her Ma’mee again.

“It was the size of a walnut.  They operated on her in the kitchen, on that table.  Pa’pee carried her back to bed after the surgery.  She was left with a long scar from her collar bone down her right side where they removed the breast,” Grandma drew a line on her chest showing where it was. 

I asked stunned at the thought of having that kind of surgery on my kitchen table, “What did they give her for pain?”

“They didn’t have much to give her that was 1929.  They gave her something but it didn’t help much, she just endured the pain. They didn’t get all the cancer.  A little scab developed and when it fell off a new sore began bigger than the one before.  That just kept happening until it grew to the size of a plate.  Then she died.  Pa’pee was never the same again.  She was what kept things running smoothly.  Like a general.”  The darkness left and her cheery countenance returned. 

I took my phone over to the picture of Pa’pee and Ma’mee on the wall and took a picture of the picture.  That is what I have posted with this story.  I wanted a reminder of what ‘ole way determination” is.  In Grandma’s memory, that determination held together a family, endured the unbelievable, and loved enough to flood down through the years to a great grand daughter-in-law who felt it as if it was standing beside her in that room.  That my fellow bloggers is what Jesus wants Christmas to be all about! Miracles and floods of love. 

If you look close you can see that her brooch is a picture of Pa'pee.

There was a lighted wreath hanging on the door adorned with colorful lights that marked the birth of Grandma’s Savoir.  It was our last stop on our Christmas journey.  We had left Camden County to drive to Dade to be with family, then on to Dallas to visit Grandma who just turned 97 on the 23^rd of December.  I was eager to see her again.  Nothing sweeter than being “liked minded” with someone who is 97 and better yet if that person is someone you treasure. 

She met us at the door with such elation that I shed a tear before entering in her arms.  “This is the best Christmas ever,” she sang.  “You are never going to believe who I had dinner with today?  Kevin, your Dad came here and he threw his arms around my neck and just loved on me!” 

We had just barely taken off our coats, set down the food we brought her, and delivered her present before she pulled us into a group hug and held our hands tightly.  “There has been an answer to prayer.  What we have been praying for all along.  And now we just got to keep on praying that they will all come together again.  God is so good.  Everyone is so good to me.  What a blessed day, the best Christmas I have ever had!”

Now I don’t have time to tell the story that led up to this so you will just have to believe me when I say that it was truly a miracle.  I promise to write about it another time, but the stories that came from her that Christmas afternoon will forever be written on my heart and one in particular stood out because of the “ole way determination”  of Grandma’s mother, Mary Rebecca who Grandma affectionately called Ma’mee. 

After much talk of our “miracle” I got to prodding about in Grandma’s memory banks.  I asked her what her favorite Christmas memory was and I watched as that question took her back through to a time that was unlike any I have encountered.  “Well…let’s see.  Ma’mee made sure we all had a present.  Pa’pee went to the woods and cut down a cedar and then we made paper chains.  We colored the paper with our crayons then glued the strips together with paste made with flour and water.  That is all that was on the tree except the star on top.  No lights or bulbs, no one had those things back then.  I thought the tree was beautiful.  Ma’mee made a special dinner and we just had family time”. 

“That is what this country needs now, more family time.”  Grandma leaned back into that memory and continued, “My mother was something.  I was her little girl, always hanging on to her.  I wasn’t a tomboy like Lucille.  I wanted to stay by Ma’mee all the time.  She was like a general keeping us all in line and making sure things ran smoothly.  Pa’pee was a carpenter but he also farmed the 200 acres we had.  Ma’mee kept my older brothers busy about the work of the farm.  Kept us feed, washed our clothes by hand and never complained.” 

The countenance on Grandma’s face abruptly changed from pure contentment to sheer dread.  An eerie quietness entered the room.  We set facing her and waited for her to pull through from the memory.  I immediately felt terrible…like I had cause some hurtful thought to reenter her mind and bring back to the forefront a forgotten agony that had held much power over her entire being. 

“We had a large dinning table in the kitchen.  Ma’mee’s doctor had asked a doctor out of Springfield to come and assist him in the surgery.  She had breast cancer.  She let us feel the knot on her right breast.”  Grandma touched hers as if she was touching her Ma’mee again.

“It was the size of a walnut.  They operated on her in the kitchen, on that table.  Pa’pee carried her back to bed after the surgery.  She was left with a long scar from her collar bone down her right side where they removed the breast,” Grandma drew a line on her chest showing where it was. 

I asked stunned at the thought of having that kind of surgery on my kitchen table, “What did they give her for pain?”

“They didn’t have much to give her that was 1929.  They gave her something but it didn’t help much, she just endured the pain. They didn’t get all the cancer.  A little scab developed and when it fell off a new sore began bigger than the one before.  That just kept happening until it grew to the size of a plate.  Then she died.  Pa’pee was never the same again.  She was what kept things running smoothly.  Like a general.”  The darkness left and her cheery countenance returned. 

I took my phone over to the picture of Pa’pee and Ma’mee on the wall and took a picture of the picture.  That is what I have posted with this story.  I wanted a reminder of what ‘ole way determination” is.  In Grandma’s memory, that determination held together a family, endured the unbelievable, and loved enough to flood down through the years to a great grand daughter-in-law who felt it as if it was standing beside her in that room.  That my fellow bloggers is what Jesus wants Christmas to be all about! Miracles and floods of love.