Rick Smith/Columnist
“But behind all your stories is always your mother’s story, because hers is where yours begins.”
― Mitch Albom, For One More Day
The year was 1936. The Great Depression. The Silent Generation.
The place was a village in northern Louisiana. Rural. Beyond the black stump.
A heat wave and drought nearly decimated the summer crops. The community, largely farmers, largely Baptist with a sprinkling of Methodist, united. Thanks to community the younglings were tucked in at night having had enough.
By September, the oppressive heat had abated. Nellie, having sweated out the hottest July and August on record, gave birth to my mom, Grace.
“I wasn’t any bigger than a bar of soap after a hard day’s wash,” Mom quipped. “Mother put me in a shoe box that she tucked into an open dresser drawer next to her bed at night.”
Grace met a guy from a nearby town. She was sixteen. He was nineteen. Tall and handsome, with auburn hair and brown eyes. The clincher, he didn’t live on a farm.
He had a thing for her. She had a thing for him. He proposed. She said yes. They stepped before the JP and said their yessireebobs.
Fast forward almost a year to the summer of ‘54, a summer of blistering temperatures with a high of 106° F. On a sweltering August day, Dr. C. M. Baker delivered a healthy baby boy to 18-year-old Grace.
“I know I’ve told you a thousand times but I’m going to tell you one more time,” Mom announced, a phrase I had heard, by her guestimate, a thousand times. “It must have been 110 in the shade that summer. Folks didn’t have air conditioning back then. Even the folks up on Broadway lounged around in their foundation garments.” A chuckle.
“We do what we have to do,” I smiled.
“You could’ve fried an egg on the asphalt.” She took a sip of sweet tea from a jewel tone aluminum tumbler. “I thought I was going to have a heat stroke that last three months.”
“Southern heat is different than, say, Yankee heat. We have humidity. Lots of humidity.” She dabbed the corners of her lips with a tissue and continued. “Heat and humidity. That’s what makes Southerners reach puberty faster.” She reared back and laughed. “All that heat and humidity.”
I thought she was finished with the story.
“Oh, and I carried you low. Real low,” she endeared.
There is an enduring bond between a mother and child. A part of your DNA moved to your mother’s body through the placenta and embedded itself in her tissues, becoming a permanent part of her. You became a part of her. She became a part of you.
Her story continued. Your story began. Fascinating.
Grace was an exceptional mother with a love as pure and unconditional as is humanly possible. The moment she held me, she knew she would love me through to her dying days. And that she did.
So, on this special day, I say, “Happy Mother’s Day in heaven, Mom. Your story continues.”
Rick Smith is a Jeffersonian and can be reached at theriquemeister@gmail.com.