Been thinking about my grandmothers all day. Have torn up the house looking for the only photo I have of my Grandmother McMurray. She’s holding my son Thomas on his first Christmas. He’s dressed in a red velvet bubble suit. I have several photos of my Grandmother Lane. Re-posting this blog ‘cause these memories comfort me today —

My grandmothers were as different as night and day! I loved them fiercely and still miss them! I hope my grandchildren will remember me with love and laughter. I know the Whoopi cushions will come up at their tales around the dining table when they’re grown and have grandchildren of their own.

My Grandmother McMurray, “Mama Doris,” dropped off the pages of a children’s book. She was plump and happy and a wonderful cook. She had soft white hair and soft, smooth hands. She had raised seven children and was at her happiest when they all came home on the holidays with their children. Had a soft lap that babies felt comfortable in. Loved watching the Braves baseball games and kept up with Alabama football. Drove a blue Cadillac with fins on the back.

Her home always smelled of good country cooking and she always had a sweet treat on her red formica bar in the kitchen and glass bottle Cokes in the refrigerator. She was a swing sitter like me. She shelled many bushels of vegetables for my family sitting in her porch swing. Loved to visit her at night with my daddy and sit on the porch swing counting the cars as they went by. She had bed pillows for her swing cushions. I use them for swing cushions, too!

When I was in college and went to England I bought her a beautiful Wedgewood china thimble at Harrods in London. Purchased one for her sister, Willie Lee, too. They made beautiful “pulled thread” tablecloths and napkins. I still have my mother’s tablecloth. Always wished for that thimble after Mama Doris died.

Mama Doris had a dog named Sandy who had crippled legs. If you petted him you’d get a static shock. After Sandy died, one of her sons-in-law gave her a German shepherd named Valkyrie. He was a great protector. He tore a hole through the porch screen one night and came back home with a blue jean’s pocket in his mouth.

I blame my chewing gum addiction on Mama Doris. One Christmas she gave me a box of double mint chewing gum and I’ve chewed a pack a day since. I love that gum!

Mama Doris loved my husband, Chief. He was always taking her collards and turnip greens, and turtles for soup, and pig feet and hog jowls from the pigs we raised. I’m so proud I have a photo of her holding my son Thomas. Thomas always tried to climb up on her bed when he was toddling around and she’d tell me not to put him on her bed. I always thought she was afraid he’d fall off the bed. Found out after she died it was the large pistol under her pillow that kept him off her bed.

She and Willie Lee would cook these huge holiday dinners! Wish we had taken photos then like we do now. We’d have turkey and ham and duck and leg of lamb and shrimp with every vegetable and casserole you could think of. They made homemade rolls with a pat of butter in the middle. Mama Doris and Willa Lee would bring the rolls, hot out of the oven, to the dinner tables. So delicious! My daddy always made a visit to taste the raw dressing before they cooked it to be sure it was seasoned correctly. The desserts had a table to themselves, always overflowing. If it was a summer time celebration, we’d have buckets of lemonade and washtubs of cold watermelons. Such wonderful times with a hoard of McMurray cousins.

When my daddy died, my brother Jim had to go and give her the news. Never knew her pain till I lost a child myself. I can still see the sorrowful expression on her face when she looked down at Daddy in the casket. His death broke her heart!

My Grandmother Lane, “Big Ma,” was slightly plump and rested on skinny bird legs, kinda like a wren. I remember her large age spotted hands and the beautiful pearl and diamond ring she wore. I wrote a poem about her hands in college and it was published in the Wesleyan Magazine.

Big Ma lived off a trust fund and drove a car that looked like a big saddle oxford shoe. She had birthed two children, my mother and her sister Margaret. Big Ma learned to drive a car driving backwards and would blow the horn twice and speed up the driveway backwards when she drove to Alexander City to visit Aunt Margaret and her family. Every time she had the bridge club she’d have to back all her friends cars up the driveway for them. She once backed out the driveway and knocked the door off someone’s car. Daddy said she yelled out, “We’ll fix that when I come back!”

She was the soap opera watching queen with a cabinet of club crackers, a fridge of chicken salad, and a tray of cheese straws. She’d built a splendorous (that’s my new favorite word!) apartment in our basement when I was six and lived independently from us. When I’d come home from college I’d run down the stairs to see her, and she’d hold her finger to her lips. “Ssshhhhhh!,” she’d say. Couldn’t say a word till a commercial interrupted As the World Turns.

She had a standing beauty parlor date each week and came home one time crying because she had read a magazine article that said Rock Hudson was a homosexual. She was crushed.

I bought Big Ma a Wedgewood tea set when I visited London.The tea set was designed with a gray flower pattern. She loved it. I have the tea set resting on a table in my living room. Gray was her favorite color. The big tub in her bathroom was gray.

She never cooked a meal for us, but was famous in the family for her chocolate ice box cake with ladyfingers. Once she caught her hair on fire cooking breakfast for herself. She’d braid her hair each night in two long pig tails and put her hair in a bun after she got up. Anyway, one of the the pig tails swung down and touched the stove eye and caught on fire. She screamed for daddy and he tore off down the stairs to save her.

Every year at Christmas she’d buy herself a Barbizon night gown and new underwear for her funeral. She’d show me the beautiful gown wrapped in tissue paper in a Vanity Fair box. And I always wondered why she wanted to wear a gown for all eternity.

I remember Big Ma sitting on our porch swing occasionally. One afternoon Mama and Daddy and I were sitting on the porch drinking lemonade with her. Big Ma set her glass on the porch floor briefly. Our yard dog Joe wandered over and slurped a few licks of lemonade. Daddy started laughing but kept quiet about Joe till Big Ma drank the rest of the lemonade. He told Big Ma, “You and Joe enjoyed that lemonade, didn’t you!” Her expression was priceless when she realized what he said. I thought she was going to throw up. Then we realized she had her pants on inside out! We laughed forever!

She was so happy when she finally started wearing pants — pant suits as the older women called them. Ralph Frohsin had gone on a buying trip for Frohsins in Alexander City and ordered some pant suits. Told Big Ma he’d gotten one for her and convinced her to try it on. She loved it!

Daddy loved to tease Big Ma! She holler up the stairs, “Jimmy, can I borrow $20?” And he’d holler back, “What happened to the $20 I gave you last week?”

Once he took Big Ma and her sister-in-law, Mary Will Handley, to the airport in Atlanta. They were flying to Connecticut to visit family. Back then you just walked across to the tarmac to board the plane. As Big Ma walked up the stairs entering the plane, Daddy saw the pilot approaching. “My mother-in-law is on your plane. It’ll be alright if you don’t bring her back,” he said laughing! Big Ma heard daddy as she entered the plane. Several days later he picked them up at the airport and Big Ma said, “Sorry, but he brought me back!” They both got a good laugh over that!

Last time I spoke to her, I ran downstairs to kiss her goodbye as I went back to my sophomore year at Wesleyan College. She told me, “I could die happily if I could see you with a baby in your arms.” She died a few months later. The first time I held my son Thomas I remembered her words.

I wonder how my grandchildren will remember me. They call me Patty because I played patty cake with them all the time when they were babies.

In a video my son Thomas sent me recently, my granddaughter, Handley, giggling herself, says, “My grandmother Patty is the the queen of laughter because she was born on April Fools Day! She’s really funny and good at jokes! And she created the knee corn tickling thing — “Give me some corn!” And I’m so glad she’s our grandmother!” Don’t tell her I didn’t invent the knee corn tickling! What grandchild wouldn’t love me, I bring Whoopi cushions every time I visit!

“A grandmother is a remarkable woman. She’s a combination of warmth and kindness, laughter and love,” —Author Unknown