The Gift

While cleaning up the last vestiges of our new year celebration this morning it occurred to me that I hadn't yet officially ushered 2014 out the back door.  Seconds later I stood barefoot at the open front door, arms outstretched, welcoming in the new year. Health, wealth, prosperity, good cheer. Joy, opportunity, chances, risk. I accept it all and more.

Honoring my grandmother who had the gift of sight and for whom I credit for my meagers gifts, I quickly opened the back door and physically swept out the old year with a broom. I see her so vividly today. Her wise old eyes and that all-knowing face. Those weathered, wrinkled and dark hands gnarled by arthritis but kept nimble by work. Her waist-long hair, coiled in a braid and pinned neatly to the top of her head. 

Her voice. That soft voice. I realize now I never heard her utter a word in anger. Her accent was island, mixed with a little southern and something unidentifiable but definitely foreign. She never called me by name, but instead always called me her dawlin.

What do the cards say dear? What are the signs from the animals, the seasons, the moon? 

After I'd gone off to college she would secretly press a ten dollar bill into my hand every time we said goodbye. Suddenly I'm thinking about the time she made me an enormous crocheted wedding bedspread for my trousseau. A not-so-subtle hint or maybe just her hope that I'd find a mate and soon. 

Her given name was Ellen, but everyone called her Nellie (Ellen spelled backwards). She was almost six feet tall, stronger than most men I knew and sweet as the day is long. She lived a quiet and contented life and never complained, except when she thought we were leaving too soon from one of our many visits. Homemade dresses. Cast off treasures rescued from the curb. Thriftiness. Handmade. Handspun. Magic.

Fish, johnny cakes, blackeyed peas and rice. Always rice. White and Uncle Ben's Converted.

She baked bread on soup can lids for my dolls and made me ice cream in metal freezer trays in my favorite flavors. Her house smelled of fish and onions, bacon grease and cornbread, and fruitcake. It was the smell of love and everything homemade and from scratch. So lovingly made and shared.

Beans, ham and greens. Eat up dear, it's new year's day. Sit and have some more, it'll bring you good luck this year. 

We'd find her in her garden long after dark and no one ever spoke about what she might be doing out there. I always wondered but never dared to ask. Lemons and papayas the size of cabbages came from that little garden plot and there was never ever a hint of blight or insects.
 
I loved her overcrowded and dark sewing room and how she turned old furniture into the kind of stuff fancy folks had in their homes. Anything I found down in the cracks of the sofas and chairs I could keep. Rings, silver pickle forks, keys. I still have it all in my little box of childhood treasures. 

 Thank you Grandma Nellie for the gift of sight and for inspiring the magic within me. 

Welcome 2015.