Happy Halloween Birthday

Happy Halloween Birthday to My Granny in Heaven!

It was cool to be a kid with a grandma
whose birthday was on Halloween.
But she made a big fuss about the Halloween part,
not her birthday part. She was selfless, that way.
She helped us cousins put together our costumes,
then sent us off to the Halloween parade
while she stayed home to welcome the trick-or-treaters.
I wish I had a picture of her to share...
She looked like a little old witch,
but she was 100% sweet, with a heart of gold.

During the Great Depression,
her house was well-known
to the vagabonds in Hobo Jungle,
down by the tracks
on the east end of town,
as a place to get a good, hot meal.

She never refused anyone help,
even though she had eleven children,
at least half of them still young enough
to be hungry mouths at home to feed.
Three of her boys were in the world wars.
That must have been hard on a mother.

She was strong, and dependable,
able to run a boarding home for the elderly,
cook three big meals a day, and
do the laundry in the shadowy basement on Mondays.
I loved to help her. Her hands smelled of bleach.

Through the years, I don't remember her getting out much.
(I guess I take after her in that way.)
She'd rather stay at home, busy.
There was always someone on hand who
she could send to the store down the street.
I can't remember her going to church, either,
but she loved Jesus and she lived her faith
in the way she cared for others.
While the rest went to church, she stayed at home
to prepare the traditional Sunday family feast,
(and who knew how many
of her children and grandchildren would show up?)
complete with three meats (chicken, beef, and ham),
homemade noodles, taters and gravy,
vegetables from Uncle Willie's garden,
and an assortment of desserts that boggled the mind.

As a child growing up during the fifties
in her big, old two-story house,
(at least part of the time, when my parents were
going through their many pre-divorce dramas),
I never thought to wonder where all the food came from.
I never thought about money at all.
"The Lord will provide," she always said
(and apparently He did). "It ain't no sin to be poor,
honey, but it's mighty inconvenient."

What I have wondered about, many times,
is how it felt to be born at the end of the 19th century
and live almost all the way through the 20th.
What amazing things she saw come into being!
What changes she lived through,
what history she witnessed!
What would she think of the world these days?
I miss her, but I'm glad she never had to experience
this old world in the sorry shape it's in now.

I'm thinking of this amazing, beloved woman
on this, the 122nd anniversary of her birth.