For Grandmother

This post is Part Two of a 5-day series this week in celebration of Mother's Day. 

As a child I was in awe of my Grandmother. She was and is, in a word, dignified. At almost six feet tall, my Grandmother does not slouch. And as a tall girl, I hoped to be dignified like her.

Grandmother was also, in my view, fancy.

She let me buy the really good candy bars at Crestline Pharmacy on the way to ballet lessons. Whatchamacallits and caramel Twix.

On her breakfast room table she kept a sugar dish. In that sugar dish there were often cubes of sugar. Not just plain old sugar like my mom used. Cubes that would melt on your tongue.

Her house held a sit 'n spin and a stuffed dog named Beauregard.

She had a place at the lake where I got to sleep on a top bunk.

She traveled to exciting places. She took me to Disney World, and I still remember seeing the tops of clouds out the airplane window for the first time. And getting that little gold pin with wings from Delta that meant I was a veteran flyer.

I remember a trip to Gatlinburg where we returned from a bathroom break to find black bears eating our lunch!

But her most glamorous trait in my book was her job. My grandmother taught music at a high school for 30 years. Being "Mrs. Manly's granddaughter" in the city of Mountain Brook, Alabama, may be the closest I ever get to royalty. Almost everyone I've ever met who graduated from MBHS during her tenure responds to this revelation of my identity with a broad smile and "Oh, I just loooove Mrs. Manly." But the best part of Grandmother's job was that she directed an annual musical at the high school. And being Mrs. Manly's granddaughter meant that I got to attend and even be IN some of her plays. I was one of the token kids in the cast. No lines.  But I got to go in the Green Room, and I was pretty sure most eight year olds didn't even know what a green room was. This was the Big Time. I remember the white dress with the blue sash for Carousel that came with a parasol.  I remember learning I'd be in a play called "Damn Yankees"--gasp!  I remember the song "Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets" and thinking this was surely the most risqué production ever. And I got to be part of all of it!

As a child I saw my Grandmother, rightly, as dignified. Elegant. As an adult I know she is even more. She has loved and served two husbands through health problems and even death, faithfully and without complaint. She has served her church all these years as well, even when in pain that made it difficult to direct her beloved choir.  And best of all, she raised my wonderful daddy.

I love her for all of her fanciness and for all of her faithfulness. Happy Mother's Day, Grandmother!