One of the most awesome moments during my morning beach walks is watching the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean. The world literally seems to stand still. All talking stops. Every person watching stands in silence facing the vast expanse of the ocean. No one seems willing to spoil the magic by speaking. We simply watch in awe.
It’s most splendid when the sun decides to break through what was supposed to be an overcast, cloudy morning. It always reminds me that in the midst of the darkest moments of your life, light can break through when you least expect it, but surely when you most need it.
In my life, light often radiates through people who I believe the Lord has put in my life. Most of the comforting memories of my childhood center on the solace of my grandmother’s presence in my life.
My grandmother, Mrs. Ena Cunningham, lived through the Great Depression, was widowed twice, and as a single mother in the 1940’s worked as a switchboard operator in downtown Birmingham. She didn’t drive a car so she would ride the bus every morning to work.
It had to be hard, but she was a thankful women and when she told me about her job, it seemed the most exciting job in the world. I can still remember the toy switchboard she bought me when I was confined in the gloomy imposed darkness of German measles.
During World War II, my grandmother gave her only son, my Uncle Jim, permission to enlist at seventeen. As a single mother with great faith, she proudly sent her only son off to war risking his life to fight for freedom while she remained working to provide for her little girl, my mother. After the war, my uncle was often gone on long tours of duty, yet there was never a sense of loneliness in my grandmother’s house. Though there were occasional potential suitors, she seemed content to live alone.
She was a handsome woman with an ample bosom where I could bury my tears on demand. She had black laughing eyes and a translucent complexion that never saw the sun but wore cold cream every night. Her greatest feature besides her flawless skin was her legs which never wore a pair of slacks and stayed long and sleek throughout her life.
She moved north to Kentucky to live with us when I was nine. Determined that I would be a proper Southern lady, she would oversee endless daily lessons. In the afternoons, I would pause from the arduous piano practice and play hymns for her from the Southern Baptist hymnal while she sang along. If I close my eyes, I can still hear her singing and humming along in a warbling voice.
As a teenager, I often forgot the adoration she had bestowed on me in my early years and still have lingering memories of her listening behind the louver doors of our living room when I had a boy over.
Determined that I would also remain true to pristine Southern womanhood, she would pull me aside after many a date and whisper in my ear, “Remember, darling, Georgia Anne, pretty is as pretty does.”
When my grandmother passed away, I flew to Atlanta where she had chosen to live her last years in an apartment building maintained for the elderly. At her funeral, reflecting on my loss, I turned to see a never-ending line of older men and women forming to pay their last respects.
I spent the afternoon listening to epitaph after epitaph that gave tribute to small gifts of love and kindness that my grandmother had bestowed upon those friends with whom she had surrounded herself.
A women who had lost so much in life had become the gift giver and sometimes the life giver to those around her. That afternoon, the world literally seemed to stand still. I stood in silence and simply listened and watched in awe. It was a perfect picture of a perfect moment remembering the light that my grandmother brought to those around her.
Memories of my grandmother often comfort me, and I tell my children about her and how much she loved me and though she had so little in a material sense, she was rich in what she chose to give to others.
When my only daughter comes to me with her smiling black eyes and long graceful legs, I tell her that she looks so like her great grandmother who was one of the prettiest women in the world. Maybe to preserve the essence of Southern womanhood within her so that she can pass it on to her daughter, or maybe just to pay tribute to the heritage that we share, I take her aside and whisper in her ear, “Remember, darling, Susannah, pretty is as pretty does.”
Digging Life 