Hi Everyone,
Today is my Mama's Birthday. She would have been 91 if she was still living. Not a day goes by that I don't think of her and some days I swear that I think and do some of the exact same things that she did and would shake my head at! Funny how full circle we can come.
My Mama was a Character. She was a very hard worker. She didn't stop, but it wasn't until I was grown and had a family of my own that I became to appreciate all the things that she did. My dad provided "The Living" as she would say. She had her job raising kids. Oh Mama what a job that you had!
Our Mothers are special. If your lucky enough to have had a wonderful Mother or have your Mother still, your Blessed.
Not that my Mother was without her flaws. That would be impossible, but the times were different back then.
We didn't have all the modern conveniences of today. It wasn't until the mid 70's that my mom ever got her first vacuum cleaner or automatic washer and dryer. Things that we take for granted today would have been deemed frivolous or a waste of money.
Her first vacuum cleaner was a Kirby. Our first brand new home was a 3 bedroom and 2 bath 14 x 70 Mobil Home. We only had it a few years before a tornado struck and it was lost. Along with the Kirby and the automatic washer and dryer.
Our next house was a rental in a rinky dinky town and our washing machine was a 2 tubbed and roller style. We filled up one side with hot water that we boiled on the stove and it washed and then we fed the clothes thru the wringer. I still have the scar today where my hand got caught up in the rollers.
After the clothes were wrung thru the wringer to the next tub we drained the water, used a water hose to fill with cold water and repeated the process. Some times more than once.
Our dryer... A good old clothes line. Or if it was winter and brittle cold and raining, our clothes line would be chairs, wire strung across the living room and hoped that after 3 days we would have dry clothes.
I never heard my mama complain tho. Oh she would get aggravated with us. But she never complained about doing the work that she did. Sundays was for Sunday dinner and my word, the food that she made back in those days. Sometimes the table was laden with so much food that today it would be mind boggling. And just thinking of the prep work that she did is also over whelming to me.
She baked yeast rolls on Sundays for the most part. There was also a pot of beans of some kind going on the back burner, and she always made cornbread even tho we had the rolls. My dad preferred the cornbread so she made it for him and later on at night Mama and I would usually have a bowl of cornbread and sweet milk as she called it.
The meat was always either Fried Chicken, Fried Pork Chops, or a Roast. On Fridays she would sometimes make Salmon Patties for us. And of course there had to be mashed potatoes and gravy! Corn and Collard Greens too.
She worked hard in her vegetable garden. I can now appreciate how she would ask us to help her weed and we would of course whine and moan and she would just do it herself. I am so sorry for not helping her more. If I could go back in time, that would be something that I would change.
But Mama also had a few "Old Fashioned" ideas that I still get a laugh out of.
For instance, when I had my first baby, she moved in... Lock Stock and Barrel. She would get so mad at me for getting up out of bed, where I was supposed to be for 6 WEEKS... she was adamant that I stayed in bed. Not that I did.
Jonathan was born June 30th and July 4th we went out to the fireworks! Mama was miffed and said that since I apparently didn't need her help she was going home. But she did go and watch the fire works with us haha! Then we took her home.
Mama loved her dogs. She loved cats too, but dogs were her favorite. She picked out one puppy, a collie mix right out of the litter from the girl next door. She named her Michelle. Mama loved Michelle so much. Oh she and Michelle were a close set. One followed the other. Mama went into a dark time when Michelle died and even tho I was young, I wondered if she would ever get another dog. Daddy brought home a mutt one day and Mama loved him, but she didn't allow herself to get really close to Peanut like she did Michelle.
After we had grown up and moved away, Mama got a dog. A mix of German Shepard and who knows what else. His name was Baby Doll. And he was her baby. One winter my dad wasn't working. It was cold that year and it seemed like it rained every day and my dad couldn't work. He worked construction. I knew that they were having it bad. So were my husband and I too as he worked construction as well. I went over and mama was at the stove making water gravy and she had 1 egg that she scrambled. I thought that she was making that meal for herself but no, it was for Baby Doll. She said... I can work for my food. He can't. It broke my heart.
I made up my mind that the next day I was applying for food stamps. I should have done it a lot sooner than I did. You know how Pride works. We will get by somehow I always said. Well I realized that it might be weeks before the ground was dry enough for my dad and husband went back to work. It was hard for me walking into that office that day. But I kept thinking of my baby and I was pregnant and I knew that not only my family, but my mom and dad needed help too. I got a total of less than a hundred dollars. Probably much less, but I went to the store and then I went back to her house and divided everything that I got. Beans, rice, cabbage. Whatever to make a meal with.
Mama paid me back a thousand times over. The next day my dad received a check in the mail that his boss had forgotten to give to him and my husband gave up construction to go back to driving a 18 wheeler semi. They gave him a $100.00 advance. He kept $50.00 and gave me the other $50.00.
My husband left to go over the road driving, It was a Friday and that afternoon Mama and daddy drove up into my drive way. They brought me in 3 bags of groceries that they had bought from the check that daddy had received.
We all seemed to get up on our feet after that. But I will never forget how she was giving up her meal, perhaps the only meal she would have for days so that Baby Doll wouldn't go hungry.
Mama never got another dog after Baby Doll died. Instead she just loved our pets. There was for me Lucky and my cats Cleopatra and later on our Duchess. My sister had chows. Blue was her favorite of my sisters dogs. and my other sister had cats. Smokey Joe and Festus and of course my cat Miss Kitty. Yep we were Gun Smoke fans lol.... I am surprised we didn't have a Matt Dillon in there somewhere.
One thing that I can say about my Mama is that she loved us. No matter how crazy things got, that was the one thing that I knew. She showed her love in a thousand different ways. Maybe I didn't appreciate it all until later on in life, but I wish so badly that I could just go back and say I love you Mama.
Have a Blessed Day. BB
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