For the Love of Dirt: vintage pics

Wednesday, May 5, 2021

HURRICANE for Mother's Day

Mum and cousin Sheila

"To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power..." - Maya Angelou

Dad, Grandma Isabella

My mother was definitely a force to be reckoned with. She could bake 8 loaves of bread , varnish the floor, do the taxes, and scare away salesmen, all at the same time. My father adored her.

My grandparents lived with them for quite a few years. I never met my grandmother. I barely knew my grandfather. He liked the tv I remember that.

I heard my mother was quite the hurricane . I remember snippets of my grandfather. A very very elderly man, who liked to watch sports on the new tv. I would stand and stare at the images on the screen. He would bang his cane on the set ,when his favourite team didn't win. My mother brought him hot toddy's in the winter. Hot tea in summer.

My father bought the tv when I was three. We had two channels. One for sports. One that seemed to have nothing but soap operas. My parents would gather around the set with grandfather , and they would watch a bit of each. My mother would serve her homemade bread slathered with butter and jam, with hot tea.

On summer days, after watching the soap operas, my parents would get gussied up and go walking up and down Government Street. Just so they'd get their picture taken by a local photographer. My mother told me she splurged and saved for new hats for those walks.

My mother missed those times, after my father died a few years later.

Some afternoons, when my grandmother was still alive, they would sit outside. The dog from next door, Bess, would come over and sit with them.My grandmother was blind by this point but she loved to stroke her fur. She loved dogs. And Bess loved her.

My mother was pretty good at taking them for outings. She would come home from working long hours, make dinner for everyone and then take her parents for a walk. After my grandmother died, she would walk with my grandfather. He walked slower in those days....

When company came, my mother got this idea they could sit on the front steps. Watch the world pass by. In later years, she told me it was like her own Walton's mountain.

She fed them buttered bread with home made jam. Hot tea. They sat out on the steps. The dog from next door would come to visit. And the world would toddle by. And my mother would relax.

At times there were walks in the park. The swans would get greedy and snap at their fingers.

Making sure there was always a photo op. My mother chose her clothes carefully.

And in those last years she strove make sure everything ran like it always had.She had looked after her parents . Now she looked after my dad.

After my grandparents died, the tv gained three channels.THREE. The third channel sported movies. We would stay up late watching some murder mystery into the midnight hour. She would slice up fresh, soft white bread and cover it with butter and jam, like always. We'd munch away while the movie played to sign off.

We did not always get along. Such different personalities we were. She had a huge heart , which she never let most people see. But it was there. She once told me that she was weary of always doing the right thing, or doing what was expected. But in the end it was what was needed. And she felt needed. It was important to her to be needed.

And she was. So needed. She had a funny side. She had a hurricane side. We all happened to be in her whirlwind....

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel..." -Maya Angelou