Over the past year, I've collected stories and pictures about my grandmother and it's brought me immense joy. I'm seeing her with new eyes -- not just my granny who loved and cared for me but as a woman in her own right. Here's an excerpt of a piece I worked wrote...
Granny’s front porch was a gathering spot for the family. Here we ate fresh summer fruit, took long draws of sun tea from old jelly jars and plastic cups, greeted neighbors and friends, took shelter during evening rains, and camped out on chilly autumn nights. It’s also where all the grandchildren waited in the summer afternoons for our parents to pick us up. The porch affixed to a muddy green craftsman style home was adorned with rose bushes crawling alongside a latticed trellis and white gardenias with plate-sized blooms with dark green, glossy leaves boldly planted near the front steps sharing their sweet fragrance as a cool Carolina breeze swept through.
Suddenly a wave of musty grey odor overwhelmed our senses, and we held our noses in protest. About a good stone’s throw away from granny’s house, a paper mill towered over the community. It served as a backdrop for everything, trick-or-treating, New Year’s, Christmas. The paper mill, with its smokestacks and dandruff-like pollutants, stood as a reminder that it provided much-needed jobs for a town dependent on tourism, fishing, and blue-collar work. Granny’s head appeared at the screen door, her eyes following the white bits as they landed.
“Lawd, dat craft actin’ up ta day.” She didn’t use the word mill to describe the beastly monument that towered less than a city’s block from her small home. She called it “the craft” as if it were a deceitful entity. The paper mill’s horn blew in the distance — five o’clock.
“About time fah ya mamas ta come,” she stepped on the wooden porch, picked up an old milk jug that she cut the top off to use as a watering can.
“Yes, ma’am,” we responded in unison. Granny held on to the faded white banister, extended her arms, and poured water into the flowerbed below. We marveled while the water cascaded across each leaf, amazed because the soil absorbed every drop. The screen door suddenly snapped shut, and Granny was gone.