MawMaw

MawMaw went as far as she could.

Ninety-nine years she led a lovely, quiet example of what a good Christian woman and mother and wife looks like.

Then she left us this past week, leaving an empty place inside a church and a family. The first chance we got, I found a quiet place and contemplated the life of this special woman who has long been in my and the amazin’ blonde’s lives.

Many things mark a lovely person’s life: For MawMaw, first, there was the Lord. She filled her spot for almost all of those ninety-nine years at the Murphy Avenue Church of Christ, then, for a short time, in the new building on Roanoke Road. She was there when that Southern writer whose whole life story you know well was born and raised right here in LaGrange. MawMaw was always there, ever since the day my mama brought me home from the LaGrange hospital.

Her life is marked by her children: Larry, Shirley, then her youngest son Mike, one whom – it is possible – you may already know. Then there were those children’s husbands and wives, later the grandbabies. In that way, I guess her life is like most others. The difference here, for me, is that those children are as much as part of my life as Georgia’s red clay, pine trees, and kudzu.

The bass-singing Larry has always been the one I’ve always wanted to be like; Shirley, like a big sister, asks me, “When ya gonna move back home?” on almost every trip home to LaGrange; and we’ve hung around that youngest son Mike a time or two, too, here and there, as you'll see momentarily.

I’m not sure MawMaw saw a great deal of difference between her children and their spouses: Larry married the world-class soprano singing Alice-Ann before she left us too early, Shirley has the very steady Oliver, the one Mike and I affectionally call “Whup.” And then Mike has our good friend and tireless worker Gloria, one you, also, may already know.

MawMaw’s life-story would not be complete without telling about Mr. Ivy Thompson, the dashing and handsome young man who took Pearly as his bride long ago. PawPaw left all of us on September 29, 2010. As with most couples, MawMaw and PawPaw were as different as, well, I guess as a glass of sweet milk and a good ol’ glass of buttermilk. Paw Paw was the eternal optimist, always laughing, always with a joke and always looking around to see to whom he could tell it. He’d tell his latest within the first minute of seeing you, and Maw Maw invariably would say,

“Aw, Ivy, he don’t wanna hear all that,” but that wouldn’t slow Brother Ivy up at all.

But that’s how different two of the people who left such a lasting impression on me were. Paw Paw was the optimist, and MawMaw leaned more toward pessimism, naturally.

MawMaw’s latter years were spent at the Florence Hand Home, where we would always go see her when we were home. Visiting MawMaw and having a little prayer together was always a homecoming highlight. We'd enter her room and greet her with a hearty greeting and ask how she was doing,

“Aw, I ain’t doin’ much good,” she’d say, and I’d look over at her youngest son and smile. She’s been saying that my whole life. If she said, “I’m doin’ great!” we immediately would’ve been pushing the red button and summoning the nurse. That just wasn’t MawMaw.

Once, on the way home from the visit, Mike said, “You know she’s the longest surviving cancer patient, because she had cancer fifty years ago,” and we both laughed.

The beautiful thing is, when MawMaw left us last week at ninety-nine years of age, she didn’t have cancer, she didn’t have heart trouble, and she really didn’t have much trouble with her mind. To me, that’s such a beautiful thing. She just went as long as she could and until she was just too tired to go on, then MawMaw laid her burdens down so she could go see PawPaw.

We loved MawMaw, and she loved us, too, I know. She would sometimes tell people, “Stevie’s my boy, too, just like my own.” I think she took it on herself to be kind-of a mama to me when Mama left us way back in 1973.

There's a " the rest of the story” we should add to MawMaw's story. This younger son Mike I’ve been telling you about is the same Coca-Cola Mike you’ve all read about here in this column for years and have grown to know and love; and sweet Gloria is the same ‘Glory’ who walks alongside him. You know that Coca-Cola is my best friend, even if I do have to tell some stretchers on him from time to time.

Now you know why the empty space down inside all of us is so big now that MawMaw is gone. Truth is, when Coca-Cola Mike lost his mama last week, we all lost one, too.