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My mother's mother...
A small-farm-town... woman...
Was the best...
The very best...
Grandma...
In the whole, whole world.
She even looked like... well...
Like... Mrs. Santa Claus.
As long as I can remember...
She had always had white hair.
(One side of my ancestors go grey early...
I mean... even in their thirties...
And the other side...
Doesn't grey at all.)
Her hair was pure white at 55.
Not short or tall...
She was a chubby woman...
Soft and chubby like a pillow...
And dignified...
Always wearing an apron
Unless she was going to church...
Always wearing an apron...
And always busy with something.
Grandma filled her hours with work...
Such as making all our meals.
She baked bread in all its forms.
There was always a batch of cinnamon rolls
Ready for baking in the morning
After we traveled a full day the day before
To get to their house.
My grandpa worked at a farm outside town.
Grandpa had a large hunched back
From a fall he took as a young man...
And still worked a full day as a farmhand...
And when the town's noonday siren went off
Calling all the farmers to their lunch...
He'd come home
To a hot lunch she'd fixed for him...
Often leftovers from yesterday's supper...
Often many days' leftovers...
Often numerous small bowls of hot food
Offered on the set table...
Waiting to be finished up.
Grandma filled her hours...
Cooking, mending, sewing, crafting.
Craft ideas were exchanged among friends
About how to make use of everything...
And she did a lot of them.
Many of her friends had also
Lived through the depression...
And lived through at least one... war...
When things were strictly rationed.
Well...
Grandma gave me two gifts that I remember.
One was an old mahogany silverware chest
Filled with a good set of stainless...
The other was...
A porcelein figure of a swan.
The swan stood almost 18 inches high...
All brown... wings raised high overhead...
So that the wings seemed
Quite long and high...
Coming to a narrow tip overhead...
But not touching the other.
I prized it.
It was easily tipped over
And so it needed a high shelf
To keep it unbroken.
But, ya. It got broke.
...One of the wings.
I glued it back.
I kept it many years.
It may still be in a storage box
From twenty years ago.
Grandma always seemed close at hand
With her pretty gift to me.
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