Mother's Day 08 part 1

It is Mother's day and I am thinking of Mama. She died in August of 1989 and I miss her. So I decided that I would just write about her. She was a good mother. She made me feel like I was her very favorite child out of 9 children. And I'm pretty sure my 8 siblings felt they were each her favorites. Mama had dark hair and eyes and I have dark hair and eyes. My brothers and sisters are various shades of blond, and all but a couple have china blue eyes. This made me feel like I was more like Mama's people. Mama was steady and calm. She had insight that often ran up against my Dad's stoic, tow the line attitude. She knew when to slacken the line and that is not always an easy judgement for a parent especially when she knew she'd have heck to pay. And I use heck there deliberately because Dad wasn't an oger, he adored Mama. Dad just thought he was "the Man!" and everyone else got to live in his world. So when Mom made a different call, Dad saw it as a coup on the kingdom.

Anyway, I am thinking of Mom today. She made the best macaroni and cheese, fried chicken and green beans in the whole world. Her sense of humor endeared her to everyone who knew her. She was brave too. I'll give you an example. She use to work on the third floor at Smokey Mountain Hoisery Mill in Marion, North Carolina. She would put a card of socks in a plastic bag and then stick the open end of the bag under a searing hot, sealing machine which sealed the open bag shut. One day, Mama accidentially got her hand caught in the bag sealer. She couldn't get the machine to open and neither could anyone else. The hot metal seared into the four fingers of her hand like a branding iron. The women around her started screaming. Several came close to fainting. My mom sitting there with her hand in the hot mouth of this machine, had the presence of mind to look about her work area. She spotted a screw driver sitting near by and with her free hand grabbed that tool and shoved it into the sealing machine. She pryed her hand free of that contraption to the relief of the entire 3rd floor. She had to have painful skin graphs but I never heard her complain. To Mama, these kinds of happenings were just part of the experience called life. She once told me, in speaking of a tough time in my marriage, that I'll have tough times and I'll have good times and the hope is that the good times outweigh the bad times. I think this was her outlook on life. She looked for the good in people and in her experiences and I don't think she left this world with many regrets. I sure do miss her.