Spring time

Spring time is one of my favorite seasons, minus the allergies.  I love seeing the renewal of the trees and flowers.  It always reminds me that we can also go through dark periods in our lives, where we feel dead like the trees appear  in winter.  But in spring, the buds come out on trees and flowers bloom again.  Our lives can sometimes need a revival and a renewal too.  Spring time is a perfect time to realize that we sometimes need to renew our spirits also.   I am so grateful to my wonderful family and friends, who are always there and give me such love all of the time.  I am truly blessed!!

My Grandma, Ma

UK just won their eighth National Championship last night.  That started me thinking about my grandmother, my Mom's mother, who we called Ma.  She loved sports, mostly baseball and basketball.  I can remember her going to bed at night with a transistor radio in the bed with her, listening to the Reds play baseball.  Now I can watch some baseball games on TV but I could never listen to them on the radio.  She was a 'dyed in the wool' Reds fan.  She also loved basketball.  I remember her taking me to Lafayette high school basketball games.  She was a unique and remarkable woman.  She and my grandfather divorced during the great Depression when my Mom was just a child, I think around 5 or 6.  Ma had to raise Mom and her brother, Tommy, without any help from Grandaddy because he didn't have any money to help her.  Mom told me that growing up they were poor; they only had one bed and all three of them slept in it.  Ma made all of their clothes; Mom didn't have a 'store bought' dress until she was in high school.  They didn't have a lot of material things but they did have a lot of love.  Mom told me a lot about her high school years, when she played clarinet in the Henry Clay High School band.  Ma would go to every football and basketball game to see Mom play in the band and maybe this is where she got her love of sports.  Mom said that her friends would come back to their place and roll up the rugs in the living room and put on records and dance.  Her friends really enjoyed that and they really liked Ma.  I remember that Ma had lots of old 33 rpm records in a desk-like cabinet,  in the bottom of the cabinet in big book-like holders that had maybe 10 records in each.  There were over 100 records in there.  Ma could make and sew anything.  She didn't need a pattern.  She could just take measurements and make beautiful dresses.  I had the best dressed dolls in the world.  She knitted sweaters and hats for my dolls and made them dresses.  She sewed dresses for Judy and me all of the time.  Even when we lived in Florida, she would get our measurements and sew dresses and mail them to us.  She was also a great cook.  Her 'light rolls', which we call yeast rolls now, were so light they would melt in your mouth. She would make fried apple pies that were the best I've ever had.  She canned preserves and jam and made the best jam cake in the world.  I was the first grandchild so I got to spend lots of time with her.  She would take me to her sisters and brothers houses, my great aunts and uncles, and they would play cards well into the night; mostly pinochle and canasta.  Lots of laughter and family fun.  She lived at 132 Rand Avenue, a street off of North Limestone, between 5th and 6th street.  Spaulding's Bakery was on the corner of 6th and Limestone and on Saturday mornings she would watch me cross the street in front of her house and then I could walk to the bakery without having to cross any more streets and get donuts and sweet rolls and bring them back.  She had an old 1953 Chevy without a radio.  But never fear, we were never without music.  She sang all the time in the car, mostly gospel songs, like the Old Rugged Cross and Bringing in the Sheeves (I never did know what sheeves were and still don't).  She was a large woman, and her love of all of us was bigger than she was.  She worked at the Narcotic Hospital, as it was called then on Leestown Road, as a switchboard operator and a typist.  She could go to town on one of those old Smith-Corona manual typewriters.  She was a happy person and never met a stranger.  I remember going shopping with her to Montgomery Wards downtown and all of the sales persons knew her by name.  She was always a glass is half-full person.  No matter what the situation, she would find good in it.  She passed this on to my Mom and hopefully, I have been able to pass this on to my children.  Jennifer gave me one of the best compliments I have ever received and one that makes me proud and happy.  She told me this recently when we were having a discussion.  She said "Thanks for raising us to see the good in things, to always see the glass half-full." That was only one of the goods thing I got from my Ma and my Mom.  They helped me to see the good in others and to always give the benefit of the doubt to people and situations.  They raised me to treat all people as equals, even in the horribly racial days of the 50s and 60s. They raised me to believe in God and to put him first in my life.   They were both the best role models I could have had.  I hope I can pass on some of these life's lessons to my children and grandchildren over the years.  They would both be so happy to see how our family is today.  Jennifer was only 6 months old when Ma passed away.  For the last 6 months of her life, Jennifer was the light of her life.  She was in a nursing home in Nicholasville and John and I would go to visit her every Sunday after church.  She loved seeing Jennifer and I truly believe that those visits made her last months on this earth happier.  Even though Ma and Mom are gone from this earth, they are truly alive in my heart and my memories.  Death can take away their physical bodies from this earth, but it can never separate their love and memories from me.