Inner Strength

"My grandmother used to brush my hair this hard. It didn't kill me and it won't kill you."

My mother said these words to me each and every time she tried to brush out my elbow-length, Stands-with-a-Fist-hair when I was a tomboy growing up in Pines Lake. She brushed so hard and said those words with such conviction that I held still and was secretly glad that this grandmother-person wasn't brushing my hair.

Growing up I heard bits and pieces about my mother's childhood. She spoke about her grandmother with fierce determination. This woman was a force to be reckoned with. Some days, I wondered how my mother ever survived.

But as the years passed, I listened better. I heard the love in my mother's voice as she told me more about her grandmother and their life together. I heard the admiration. Even though she never said it, I also heard how much she missed her grandmother.

My mother was born during the Great Depression. She was raised by her grandmother, a practical woman who believed in common, garden variety, horse sense.

For awhile they lived on a ranch in Texas. They didn't have a radio or receive a newspaper. They got their news of the world from the transient workers who came to work the ranch.

My great-grandmother sewed all my mother's dresses from feed sack cloth. She made my mom wear a sun bonnet against the strong Texas sun. In the history of the world, she is the only person to ever get my mother to wear a hat!

When my mother had asthma attacks, she was confined to bed (asthma medicine didn't exist). Her grandmother would sit by her bed, peel & scrape an apple to mush, and feed it to my mother.

I've heard about the wonderful butterscotch pie my great-grandmother used to make. How she would kill a chicken for dinner. I've tried and failed to make her fried chicken (I got my chicken at the grocery store already plucked).

I heard about the time she took a cast iron pot full of slop out to the pig pen. She slipped and broke her arm. She got up still holding the pot. She swung the pot and snapped her broken arm back into place.

She was one tough lady.

Over the course of my lifetime, I came to love and admire this remarkable woman that I never had the privilege to meet. If I ever had a daughter, I would have named her after my great-grandmother. But instead Mr. A's first name is a variation of her maiden name.

Six years ago when my Sweetie and I planned our wedding I made the surprising discovery that my married initials would be the same as my great-grandmother's married initials. The pin pictured above belonged to her. My mom and I temporarily modified it so I could wear it in my hair for the wedding.

This past week has been emotionally draining for me for multiple reasons. I'm tired. Something this morning made me think of my great-grandmother. She was a woman with great inner strength. I came home this evening and ran my fingers over her pin. I felt her initials. I felt the coolness of the silver. I felt the smoothness of the enamel.

I'm still tired but I feel... reinforced. I plan to live up to those initials.

Now I best call my mother before she reads this without being prepared.