remembering love.

day 12 of the challenge:  who i miss?


i am going to divide this into two parts. cool?

i was thinking about this last night and immediately thought of my grandparents.  my dads mom passed away before i was born, and his dad, my granddaddy, died when i was sixteen.

my, mam mam, my mom's mom died when i was five and my mom's dad had passed away before i was born.

i remember my mom always telling me growing up when she would buy me one to many toys for christmas or i would get that thing that i really didn't need and was perhaps a brat....to finally break her down and get my way, that she felt like she had to make up for me not having grandmother.  which she totally didn't and she knew that, as well as i - i think she was sad that growing up i never got to experience days at my grandmothers house or getting spoiled by grandparents.  i never knew what that was like.

i missed that.  i miss it.

but i remember:

combing my mam mam's long long hair when i was little.  it was so long and so pretty and then my mom would plat it and she would put it on top of her head.  i remember thinking she was beautiful.  i never knew her not at a nursing home and then she made her home with us until she passed away at when i was five years old.

i have vivid memories of walking with her, holding her hand, running ahead to get her a wildflower, and then grabbing her hand again and we would walk.  up and down the long driveway in front of my parents house.

i don't remember her voice.
i don't remember her smile.
but, i remember her.

i hardly ever think about her.  she is such a distant memory, but writing this, i have a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes thinking about her.

her hand in mine as we would walk the hill over and over again.

my granddaddy, my dads dad.  he lived just across the road from us my whole life until he passed away when i was sixteen.
i remember his voice.
i remember how his hands felt in mine.  course, rough and hard, he was a farmer and worked so hard.
i remember his smell.
i remember the khaki pants that he wore every day.
i remember taking him to his girlfriends house on sundays and then picking him up sunday night.
i remember his girlfriend, minnie, giving me a plastic candy cane full of christmas candy every christmas and every christmas she spelt my name wrong.
i remember granddaddy telling us every thursday night when we had him over for his favorite dinner, fried chicken, green beans and mashed potatoes, that we made the best fried chicken.
i remember picking that fried chicken up from KFC every thursday.
i remember we never told him any different.
i remember him.
i remember watching him on the tractor.

my prayer is that our children will be blessed enough to know their grandparents.  to really know them, that when they are my age that their memories are a little more clear because they had more time with them.
because they made more memories with them.
i want them to know their smell.
i want them to know their touch.
i want them to know their voice.

i want them to know their history.

1 comment:

casey said...

You express this so beautifully Jessica! ..it's it amazing how smells and songs and such bring back so many memories?? Love how they help me remember those moments and people so vividly..

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