In early morning coolness with
summer sun kissing the rows of green beans, tomatoes,
squash, and potatoes,
she would direct us to pull weeds
and scold me and my cousin for being too rowdy.
Grandma worked alongside us,
her dyed red curly hair
bobbing along the rows.
After a few hours, she’d press a hand to her back,
and tell us it was time for lunch.
Anyways.
Her farm was small, the land more hill than not,
and bounded by thick woods,
but in the old days it was still enough to support
horses, pigs, cows, chickens, ducks,
and an odd turkey or two.
She had a garage grandpa built, big enough to hold
a tractor and four cars, a large barn, a pig stye,
a chicken coop, a small orchard, and the foundation of an old spring house
where the water never stopped pooling.
Her gravel driveway was long and sloped
with a gate near the main road to keep the cows in.
Anyways.
She peppered any story
or ended anything she had to say
with ‘but anyways.’ It took me a very long time
before I figured out that anyways is nonstandard,
dialect, and that I should drop the ‘s’ at the end.
Anyways.
She grew up without running water on a farm near Elkins.
They had a pipe that ran from a spring into their kitchen,
and with a laugh she once told a story about
the day a snake came through the pipe into their sink,
sending her mom and sisters screaming from the house.
Anyways.
She had three couches in her living room,
two long one short, all covered with afghan blankets,
and a recliner by the side door where everyone piled their coats.
Two end tables with lamps and books and magazines and several TV trays.
The kids ate thanksgiving dinner there
while the adults sat around the 10-person table in the kitchen.
Anyways.
She’d fold her legs beneath her while reading books,
mostly Westerns sometimes Romance,
and often wore shorts. She bragged that she never had to shave
because she’d had a surgery and the hair never grew back.
She’d sip her coffee and look
out the window now and then to count the deer in the orchard.
During deer season, she’d announce that the hunters must’ve gotten a few
and when it was time, she’d tell us to put on her shows.
Sometimes soaps, sometimes Chuck Norris, and always Steelers Football.
Anyways.
She had a large family.
Catherine, Alan, Norma, Gloria, Rosie, Sheila, Tammy, Debbie,
and a miscarriage in there somewhere. A boy, so maybe a stillbirth.
She had a husband, Alonzo, who served in World War II.
But in the end, it was a war of a different type that got him:
paranoid schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson, and dementia.
She took care of him until one day, he took a gun
and shot it in the air in front of the house.
Scared everyone, so there was no choice but to put him
in the mental hospital at too young an age
and eventually she moved him to a nursing home.
She lived alone for over twenty years,
working the farm with help from Alan.
Anyways.
She cooked massive meals for her children, made homemade bread
that brought the ones who moved far away back home.
Holidays were crowded and happy, each of her children giving her
two or three grandchildren.
Her children told stories and played cards
while the grandchildren jumped on the beds upstairs
or climbed the hills around the house
or built hay forts in the barn.
Just as long as we were being loud somewhere other than the kitchen.
Anyways.
She loved African Violets and Christmas cacti.
She filled one of the bedrooms upstairs,
the one with three windows, to the brim with plants.
She kept a chest there too. Filled with artwork from Tammy,
random pieces of clothing, a half-finished quilt, and a few books.
My cousins and I would poke around in it and
Ooh and ahh over the drawings,
giggle at the medical encyclopedia.
Anyways.
She was competitive and didn’t like to lose games.
The Scrabble battles between her and my dad…
legendary within the family.
She could spell better than anyone,
though my dad still says she made up words.
She claimed her spelling was all thanks to her schoolin’
with a strict teacher in a one-room school.
Times were different then,
she had her wrist slapped once or twice with a ruler,
and kids nowadays just don’t face the same troubles she did.
Anyways.
Great-grandchildren began to arrive
and Thanksgiving had to be moved to the firehall
so we could all fit. She grew too tired
to cook the big meals, so each one of her children
would cook a side or two and work together
to make the turkey.
But she still had the place of honor at the head
of the table and often remarked how nice it was
that she wouldn’t have to clean up afterwards.
Anyways.
Grandma died last night.
Her house is slated to be torn down.
Her farm turned over to a grandson who,
most likely,
will only use it for pasture.
Anyways.
-Melissa Reynolds
