My grandmothers were both named Lucille. They were larger than life, each in their own way. I spent a lot of time with them as a child and they taught me many things that shaped who I am today. Most of my skills in areas of cooking, sewing, gardening, and just living life were their years of experience passed onto me. There were many hours of patiently shelling peas sitting on the cold concrete steps of the back porch while drinking sweet tea, walking through dirt path garden rows explaining what was ready to pick so we could can some chow chow, and pointing to trees, shrubs, and flowers pausing to provide the proper names.
My mom's mom lived on a farm with my grandfather. She often referred to this as the happiest time in her life. They sold the farm and moved to town shortly after I was born so I have no memory of this place, only a few faded pictures remain. When she was in later stages of Alzheimer's and still able to speak, she had reverted back to this era and was happy again to be back in the company of my grandfather and the cows. She would put Martha Stewart to shame flocking her own Christmas trees, cooking foreign cuisine, and could slip cover anything if it stood still long enough. Sometimes, when the wind is whistling around my house, I can hear her laugh that I have come full circle to back to where she is.
My dad's mom was a force to be reckoned with. Some of my favorite memories with her are going to "town" to the feed store to buy fabric that matched to cut squares and make quilt blocks. We would sit for hours with the radio playing just stitching these small pieces of fabric together. I would hand her my quilt block for inspection of the stitches. Were they small and straight enough to suit her? If they didn't make the cut she would take out her small scissors and remove my thread and tell me sternly to "lick the calf over." There was no getting by. When you got in trouble with her you got to cut your own branch from the weeping willow tree out front for her to swat you with, or if you were really bad she threatened you with the old man that came by and collected "the bad children." What was she supposed to tell him when he knocked at the door?
What I learned from my grandmothers:
1) Life is too short to lie about it. Call it Tourette's or just not having much of a filter, but you never worried where she stood on an issue or what she thought about anything. Like a deep sense of trust between people that said "I'm gonna just be me and you just be you." Even with complete strangers.
2) Be as nice as you can, but don't take any shit off of anybody. This advice was given to me on the morning of my grandfather's funeral after 50+ years of marriage when considering whom to marry and what to do to ensure a long union. After a brief pause she added "and always have a little something put back that he doesn't know about."
3) Never trust anybody that says "trust me." It's true. Just is.
4) Pretty is as pretty does. How you act is just as important, if not more so, than how you present yourself. Play nice also was verbally thrown around...which I always considered the same thing.
5) (when faced with a failed dessert) Cool Whip covers a multitude of sins. That cake recipe off the side of the can that she decided to be brave and try...with the cratered center cause it didn't turn out right...still tasted good and nobody was the wiser when Cool Whip came to the rescue. Same applies to life I found out...be brave, try it, if it doesn't quite work out, then drown it in something pretty and go on with your bad self.
6) When all else fails...Let's cut up and act silly. Both Lucilles knew how to laugh. At most things. Even somethings that were considered inappropriate to laugh at. They didn't care. They lived. They laughed. They loved. Fearlessly.
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