Ode To My Mother

Dear Boo and Bubble,

Had she lived, today would be your great grandmother Mary’s 100^th birthday.  I can’t help but spend some time with you sharing memories of her because, even though she seemed to circulate in the shadows of Granddaddy Schaefer’s dominant personality, she was herself a force with which to be reckoned.  In that undercurrent of a supporting role, she helped make all things possible for her husband and children.  She was a very diminutive woman whose enormous heart and staunch faith saw her through whatever rough patches life cast her way.  There was nothing more important to her than family and I know, without a doubt, that she would have loved you two precious boys.

When I think of her, I remember…..

……At only three years old, driving from Greenville to Houston, Texas, to see your great, great grandmother Bethany, we stopped at a motel probably somewhere near Mobile, Alabama, to spend the night.  As clearly as yesterday, I can see her tucking me into the bed and, sitting on its edge, stroking my forehead and singing “Go to sleep little baby; go to sleep little baby.  When we wake, we’ll have some cake, and a whole lot of little horses.”

………. When we only had one car and Mamaw’s day for its use was Wednesdays.  All the grocery shopping, committee meetings, doctor’s appointments, dental cleanings, teacher conferences, hair appointments, and any other function outside of the house took place on Wednesday.  Somehow she managed to get it all done and never complained.

…….. All the years that we went to Ocean Drive Beach for our annual week-long vacation and, that one particular year when she and I struck out alone early in the morning to the dock behind the fish house sitting on the intercoastal waterway, just as the tide was coming in….and we crabbed through the high tide and low tide and the high coming in again….she pulling them in on the lines tied with chicken necks while I netted them….and at low tide, she had to literally sit on me so I wouldn’t fall off the dock.  We must have brought home 150 crabs which she cooked and helped clean and converted into her mouth-watering crab gumbo, deviled crab and crab cakes……but always leaving some of the best meat just plain with drawn butter for Granddaddy Schaefer to dip and enjoy.

……..How she was always knitting baby blankets or booties just to have on hand when she learned of a baby being born…..

…….And Christmastime, when her objective was to stretch out as long as possible the opening of presents which meant separating a pair of socks and wrapping them independently of one another ….. or breaking down a carton of cigarettes for Granddaddy into 12 individual, separately wrapped packs.  By the time she finished, the tree was pretty much swallowed up with the number of packages around it.  And, she also kept a stash of un-tagged presents on hand just in case someone showed up at the door with an unexpected gift.  They never knew but that the hand towel set or the oven mitt was bought exclusively for them. 

And I will always think of her when….

…..I recall our kitchen table at 3 Lakecrest Drive.  From the time we moved there when I was in the first grade until after I graduated from college, our kitchen table always provided the venue for an abundance of happiness enjoyed by family and friends, who knew that the back door was always unlocked and a seat in a ladderback chair was available.  She had her quirks about the table though…..forbidding us to put a carton of milk on it as milk should be properly served in a pitcher…..but, if you wanted the pet rabbit to run around on top….that was fine.

……I watch a Braves baseball game because she loved the Atlanta Braves (and especially Dale Murphy) almost as much as she loved Granddaddy Schaefer.  Actually, she grew up on baseball in Texas when Dizzie Dean was a star and she became an avid fan of the game.  During the season, she would listen to games on her transistor radio at night, moving the dial to the Midwest stations after the games on the east coast finished, and then staying up until the wee hours of the morning for the broadcasts on the west coast.  In 1974, when Captain and I were to be married, Hank Aaron was playing for the Braves and chasing the home run record (714) set by Babe Ruth in the early 1930’s.  Mamaw would not miss listening to a game on the radio, including those that were being played during parties and wedding showers that people gave me.  Very ingeniously, she carried her knitting bag to all of the festivities and hid her transistor radio by tucking it down into the yarn.  She plugged in earphones and ran the cord of only one earpiece up the sleeve of her sweater.  (Some people thought she was wearing a hearing aid.)  While I was opening presents and “oohing and aahing” over everyone’s generosity, she would be listening to the Braves games.  Whenever she clapped her hands, I knew it wasn’t because of anything going on at the party…..Aaron had just hit another homer.

……I play cards.  Mamaw was almost a saintly person….always generous….thinking of others…would never hurt anybody.  However, if you put cards in her hands, she became somebody else altogether.  She loved to win bids in Bridge, but it brought her particular delight to set someone.  Oh…..it was always prefaced with “I hate to do this to you” as she played a trump on your ace…..or ruined the finesse you needed to make things work….but, make no mistake about it….she relished it.  I remember one time at the beach, we were playing Hearts and Harry Stephenson (your Uncle Gene’s buddy who accompanied us that year) wanted to sit next to Mamaw because he thought she would be generous with the cards she passed to him.  The look of shock on his face when he opened up her discards was priceless.  He learned a very valuable lesson that year….

And I will always smile when I recall….

……how Granddaddy Schaefer loved to see how many times he could get her to say the blessing before she realized what he was doing.  The normal routine was that she served everybody’s plate before taking her seat.  Granddaddy would say “Mary, please say the blessing,” and she would bow her head and offer grace.  A few minutes later, Granddaddy would ask her to get him something and she would hop up to fetch it.  As soon as she sat down again, he’d repeat “Mary, please say the blessing” as if this were the first time she had come to the table.  I think the record was five times before she figured it out….your great uncles Bryant and Gene….and I would almost explode from holding back the laughter.

……how she was called for jury duty to the Master in Equity court, a level of jurisprudence that covers small claims and traffic violations, and when canvassed about her conflicts of interest with either lawyers or defendants, she felt compelled to let the judge know that she did not believe in capital punishment. 

And I will always marvel at…..

……the way she could make people feel special, even when their societal status might not suggest that they were…..like the time that she found out it was the bag boy’s birthday at the grocery store and she went home and baked him a cake….and when she won “Customer of the Year” for the service department of the Chevrolet dealership…an honor that certainly said more about her than the car she was driving…and when she died, these people filled the pews at her funeral because she took the time to know their names and learn about their families….

And I will always be appreciative of…….

…….how I could always tell her anything and she would never judge me…..and how she would let me cry when I was hurt and give me counsel on what to do….and how she would let me just be her child, even when I was full grown, because sometimes I needed to be the child and not have to worry about things….

……how, when your mom and Aunt Bee came along, she devoted so much time, energy and attention to them……going to yard sales and buying all sorts of scarves and costumes and accessories ….so that when they came to visit 3 Lakecrest, one whole guest room was filled with fodder for the greatest of imaginations….and they would run down the hall to that magical room and come out ready to perform the most wonderful shows….

……how she loved Captain….what can I say…..if anything had ever happened to the two of us, I would have been out on the street, I truly believe…..and how on her death bed with her heart failing, the last understandable utterance to come out of her mouth was when she told me that she wanted to see her heartstrings.

As I do with all of the others who have gone on before us, I wish you boys could have known Mamaw Mary in the flesh.  My words and descriptions of her are woefully inadequate.  But, she is very much present – through me to your mom and through her, now to you.  And so, knowing that because of that connection, she lives and dwells within you, shall we all say together– Happy 100^th Mamaw Mary!!