I spent the first eight years of my life next door to my grandma. All that separated us was a gate and there were many days when I swung that gate open half a dozen times. I knew she would always have applesauce, and I knew where she kept the Trouble game. I heard her stories and felt the stitches of her quilts.
My boys live 1,200 miles from my mama. They know her voice on the phone. They feel the joy of pulling into her driveway after months away, and they sit with her on the porch when she visits us. But they are too young to understand the history that she holds. They forget what her eyes have seen. They don’t know yet that she has the answers to questions they will one day ask.
That’s why this time she visited we set aside time for family stories. After the rush of Easter we had Mama fix scrambled egg sandwiches just like Daddy made. We ate ice cream on cones like Grandma and Grandpa used to do every night when they watched the news.
Mama made chicken fried steak and told how her daddy lived through the Tulsa race riots — how his family walked on the railroad tracks to safety in another town. She talked about her favorite doll and her bicycle, about not having a telephone until after she was married.
My mother-in-law came, too. Even though she lives nearby she brought things my boys had never seen. A metal cigar box from Holland that had been her grandfather’s. A cross that had always sat on her grandmother’s Bible. A bracelet made of Dutch coins. Stories of potatoes made with kale, of hot tea mixed with milk.
The boys’ eyes got big. They asked questions. They took an interest in where they had come from. Maybe it will help them on the way to where they are going.
I will sing of the mercies of the LORD for ever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations. - Psalm 89:1
