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| My cousin Kevin sits on Granny's steps, August 1964 |
Nothing thrilled me more than the
adventure of sleeping in the back window of Dad’s 1949 Chrysler on our trip to
Granny’s house. All it took was her phone call to Mom in July or August when Granny
said, “Sadie, the garden’s in. Come on down.”
The
following Saturday after Dad closed his barbershop, he loaded Mom’s canning
jars in the trunk with our suitcases. Two sisters sat in the back seat. I
crawled into the cubbyhole beneath the backseat window. Mom sat up front with
our baby on her lap, the diaper bag and Dad’s Thermos of hot coffee at her
feet.
My father knew
every county and gravel road between Detroit and Peter Creek, Kentucky. Each
trip he aimed “to shave off a few mile” and arrive earlier at Granny’s house
than the summer before.
From
my backseat window, I observed Detroit’s tall buildings disappear and Ohio’s
cornfields surround us in an ocean of cornstalks. Far as my eyes could see. I
fell asleep with the taste of Granny’s buttery roastin’ ears in my mouth.
Before
dawn, Mom gently shook my sisters and me. “We’re at your granny’s house. Wake
up.”
I smelled the ancient, green mountains and saw the steep, concrete steps leading to her front porch. There,
Granny’s swing hung from the ceiling by chains. On rainy days, my sisters and I
would sing and swing for hours.
Sometimes,
Granny’s neighbors came to visit Mom to see how her girls had grown. Most of
the women I didn’t know, except Juanita Charles because we played with her
children in Granny’s alleys.
“Now, those dirty
boys are not allowed on my porch, y’all hear?” Granny reminded us.
Her next-door neighbor who lived in a large, lovely house came to sit on the steps and talk
with us after dinner. Younger and smaller than Granny, she’d take one step up at
a time, sit for a while, and scoot up closer. All the time smiling and asking
us questions.
This puzzled me to
the point that I later asked Granny, “Why does your neighbor lady talk with us from
your steps?”
My grandmother sighed.
“Oh, Bernice was borned with a hole in her heart, honey. She cain’t climb steps
too fast.”
I felt sorry for
Bernice and asked Granny, “How could a hole grow in her heart?”
“I don’t know,
Ars. But Bernice does just fine takin’ step by step.”
On this bright, frigid February day when a migraine headache this morning sabotaged my walk in Michigan’s winter wonderland, I remember Bernice, write a few sentences. Swivel my chair to the window. Ponder deer tracks in the snow. Rest my eyes on the beautiful and steadfast.
Dear Reader, Granny’s
house, built in 1948, the year before my birth, no longer stands. There’s no
trace of the concrete steps my sisters and I ran up and down while Mom and
Granny preserved her vegetable garden.
Yet, God is
merciful. Granny left a photo of those beloved eleven steps where I learned to
walk this life step by step.
