Summers With My Grandparents

I remember as a young child about 9 years old always given the privilege to visit my grand parents in Rutherfordton, North Carolina in the summers. I loved my grandparents with all my heart since they were the only set I had ever known. My father had left my brother and I at a young age and his parents had seemed to have left as he did. Every now and then they would resurface but never really had any part in my life. My mother’s parents were known to all of us as “Maw-maw and Paw-Paw”. With me being from the North all the Yankees addressed their grandparents as “Grandma and Grandpa”. I always felt extra special being able to call them Maw and Paw. It gave me a feeling as if “they”were different from other grandparents and in my eyes they were. My Maw-Maw was very short and plump, glasses, wore a dress with an apron and pure white hair with yellow highlights. I remember hugging her one day and the sun was reflecting from her hair. I noticed the yellowish streaks that flowed throughout. My hair was dark brown and it made me wonder what I was going to look like with white hair as she did. Her hands worked tripled the years I had lived. They were hands that were worked to the bone by farm life but when I was hurt she would comfort me. Those hands you would have thought belonged to a brain surgeon. She married at 13 years old and had her first born at 14 years old. Eight children in all and a marriage of 54 years to follow. My Paw-Paw was of a tall nature and had black coal hair. He had skin as brown as clay and he never showed his skin. He always wore long sleeve shirts and overalls and boots. He would say, “The Lord does't want us to be runnin' around naked”. Later I would come to know that my Paw-Paw had allot of those Lord s...

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...nt porch swing, dirty bare feet and licking honey down to your elbows.

My grandparents were very religious people and their Christianity was of a true faith.

Every morning and every night he would sit in his old green recliner by the table lamp and read from his Bible. In seeing him do that every night it was by his example that I knew my Paw-Paw was a loving, kind and good man. Just before he would turn out the light he would make his way to the old clock mounted to the wall and with the key wind it up before retiring to bed. In the morning the same routine. He would read from his Bible then wind the clock for the day ahead. Grace was said before each and every meal and you were always asked if you had said your prayers before going to bed. I loved that about them that they knew and loved God so much but I had really not even come to know Him yet.