Granny Was Not a Great Cook

It's been a while since I posted. I decided to share a story that I  wrote in the birthday card of good friend recently. It's a grandmother story, and who doesn't love a grandmother story?

My grandmother, who I called Granny, lived in West Virginia while I was being raised in Texas. As a result, I didn't see her often.  A few weeks vacation every summer until I was a teen and maybe another week around some holiday was what there was. 

We didn't have cell phones or e-mail back then.  A few expensive long distance calls were allowed around birthdays and holiday. So we didn't talk often and I don't feel like she knew me very well. In spite of this, upon arrival, my Granny would hug me and mutter something about how big I was getting (until I was too old to tolerate that) . Sometimes she would grab my face and kiss me on the head ( again until I was too old to tolerate it.) 

While I didn't get a ton of time with Granny, from the little time we had, three things became apparent:

1. Granny's cooking was awful. We were happy for the store cookies or a box mac and cheese.

2. Her Christmas gifts were sometimes shocking. When I was really young I would get upset about the terrible gifts I got, thinking Granny must not like me much. My mother would smooth it over by explaining that Granny didn't know me that well or that she sometimes forgot how old I was. By the time I was a teen, our family competed to see who could get the worst Granny gift.

3. She loved me. Even though she didn't know me that well, I was FAM, so I got loved in automatically. It was done deal....... even when I was a cranky teen. Didn't matter. Loved in automatically.

One time my Granny mentioned to me something about her pastor. She was quite complimentary of him as he had be generous to her family in some times of great stress. I don't remember the situation really only that she had said that she was "beholdin" to Pastor for his help when Grandpa was ill or something. I had not heard the word beholdin' . It was not a word that we used in Texas. Maybe it was a West Virginia word. Anyhow, I asked her what it meant. She told me it was being really grateful combined with  "I owe you one." She said the key was that the person you "owed one" would never see it that way. That person just did what they did. Maybe they thought they were doing something good or needed or just the right thing. It didn't matter why to her.  

If you are really lucky you will have at least one friend in your lifetime that gets loved in automatically like FAM, even if......... Oh it doesn't matter. Maybe that friend will have changed your world somehow and your grateful heart will leave you beholdin' to them. Take heart is knowing that your friend probably doesn't see it that way. `

Lucky me! I have more than one person like this in my life. They know who they are. 

lw