Twenty-four Carat Love

TWENTY-FOUR CARAT LOVE

What is twenty-four carat love?   It is pure love, love without expectations or manipulation.  It is loving someone so much that you would do anything to spare them any suffering.  It is honest.  It is unselfish.

My Mawmaw (or Momo) gave me twenty-four carat love.  Now that I'm getting older and I have my own granddaughter, I can look back and learn from her actions; I can and do appreciate the unselfishness of her love for me.  

So how do we know if we are loving completely, unselfishly?  All that I can do is give you examples of why I think she loved me that way.

• She never lied to me, even if it wasn't what I wanted to hear. 
• When I asked her to keep my secrets, she did.
• She never talked bad about my parents, my friends, or anyone in my life.  She may have given me advice when she thought someone might not be a positive influence, but she did not try to turn me against anyone.
• She never asked me to lie and taught me not to lie.
• When she gave, she did not expect anything in return.
• She listened and never judged. 
• She spent time with me, even if we were just watching television or playing Old Maid.  She talked to me and showed an interest in what I thought and felt.  
• When I suffered, she cried with me.
• She let me make a mess even though she hated to have anything out of place.  
• I always tried to do what she asked me to do, but if I couldn't, she did not try to make me feel guilty.
• When I was upset, she didn't try to make it about her.  She just tried to make me feel better.

If only we could all love with twenty-four carat love!  I hope that when I am gone, my children and grandchildren will have such beautiful memories of me, memories that give them both roots and wings.  

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The Faceless Woman

I was adopted by my parents when I was three weeks old..   They always told me that I was adopted, but the only information that we had about my birth mother was that she had given birth to me at a Catholic home for unwed mothers in Austin and that she was only sixteen years old at the time of my birth.  Even though I had amazing parents, grandparents and friends, I always felt like something was missing. There were so many unanswered questions  and just a feeling of never knowing who I truly was that often consumed my mind, even while I slept.

When I was about five years old, I started having a terrifying recurring dream.  I was out alone in the cold, dark night when I saw this big, eerie house through the fog.  Lost and all alone, I felt as If I had no choice but to go inside to  find someone to help me.  When I reached the big double doors of the ominous dwelling, I suddenly sensed that someone on the inside wanted me to open them without knocking. The doors were heavy, and when I finally pulled them open and stepped inside, they slammed shut so forcibly that I knew I would not be able to leave; I was trapped.

The inside of the house was just as creepy as the outside.  There was an expansive foyer with no furniture, lit only by the light of the moon shining in through the tall, Gothic windows.   The only thing in the foyer was a long winding staircase.  Hesitantly, I looked up at the top of the stairs and saw the silhouette of a woman.  I still get the chills when I think of her slowly descending the staircase and becoming more visible, more menacing. She wore a long blue dress that was cinched at the waist and her long black hair was pulled up in some sort of loose bun.  Then the light of the moon hit her face, and there was nothing there.  I couldn't scream; I couldn't move.  She just kept getting closer and closer until I knew that I would never escape.

After having this nightmare for months, I finally broke down and told my Mawmaw about it.  My grandmother was always very calm and sensible, so imagine my disquiet when she uncharacteristically became extremely upset, so much so that she called my mother at work.  I remember her telling my mother, mostly in French, that she was very worried and that my mother needed to do something about my nightmare right away.  She then tried to comfort me and assure me that nothing bad could happen to me because of a dream, but I knew that Mawmaw was worried.

Years later she would tell me that she felt that the dream was about my birth mother.  She confided in me that she had often feared that my birth mother would just show up one day and take me away from her. I told her that no one could ever take me away from her, but that I did want to find her someday just so that I could learn more about who I was and why she gave me up for adoption. My grandmother became very upset.  She said that she was worried that I would only be hurt by what I would find.  She told me to trust that there was a reason that God gave me to my parents and leave it at that.  Mawmaw was right.

I found my birth mother when I was eighteen and tried to have a relationship with her for years.  After countless empty promises and even being taken advantage of her financially and emotionally, I finally made the decision to cut her out of my life for good.

I am by no means saying that dreams are somehow prophetic.  Rather, I think that my grandmother had exceptional insight which was only magnified by her unflinching faith in God.  There are many other reasons that I believe she had an exceptional gift.   I will go into detail about those on another day.

I also believe that for some adoptive children, finding birth parents can be a blessing.  It ends years of wondering and can sometimes even lead to a renewed bond, especially if the adoptee has had a less than fulfilling childhood.   It can also be invaluable to know one's familial medical history.  Everyone should have the right to that information.

Luckily for me, my true family raised me with unconditional love and support which gave  me the inner strength to eventually realize that my I did not my birth mother's love or even her presence in my life to know who I was or that I was lovable. Even though I have made the decision to not allow her to hurt me anymore, I am still grateful to her for giving me life and for choosing to give me a better life than she could have given me.  Anyone who knows anything about my parents and my grandparents knows that she made the right choice.

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Funny Friday Flashback

My MawMaw

My Mawmaw was one of the funniest people I have ever known.  Whether her funny moments were intentional or not, she knew how to laugh at herself which made her even more lovable.  As I have gotten older, I have come to realize that her ability to laugh at herself and life in general got her through pretty miserable situations.  I will tell you about some of the terrible hardships that she faced another day.  Today is a day to remember a few of the things that she did or said that still make me smile all of these years later.


According to my mother, my grandmother was quite entertaining when her children had sleep overs.  Mom loves to tell the story about how Mawmaw had to hide a black eye for a week because she was too embarrassed to tell people that she got it when she was playing hide and go seek with a bunch of kids in the dark and ran smack dab into the open closet door.  I know she would have laughed her butt off at me when, doing the same thing, I got stuck on top of the refrigerator and had to yell for help.  I told you I was a lot like Mawmaw!

Another memory that always makes me smile is the great pants adventure.  My grandmother NEVER wore pants. She wore her homemade dresses when she stayed home or visited friends, and she wore her store bought dresses to church and other public places.  It didn't matter if it was twenty degrees outside; she would just put on her stockings and repeat over and over again, "Bon Dieu, il fait froid."  ("Good Lord, it's cold!)  I remember one time when she made an exception.  My family spent many weekends at "The Old Place," the piece of farmland about twenty miles out of town where my PawPaw grew up (and where I live now). My parents bought a mobile home and moved it out here so that everyone, friends and family, could spend family weekends barbecuing, playing, and growing our own vegetables. Mawmaw had terrible varicose veins, but she was determined to help in the ever growing garden. Therefore, my mother had took her to Sears one day and told her that she had to buy at least one pair of pants to protect her legs from the cold and other hazards if she wanted to continue to help them with the garden. After protesting for a while, she finally agreed.   The next Saturday we were all outside when out comes Mawmaw in her new pants, which she had slipped on under her old dress.   Mom never told her she had to wear pants again.

The last story of the day is my favorite.  My Mawmaw was a generous, sweet woman who was determined to help out wherever she happened to be.  At least one weekend of the month, my Pawpaw would take off for the weekend to "play cards" for two days.  Mawmaw did not stay home alone, so she would come to our house.  I loved those weekends because she would stay up late with me to watch television and do just about anything else that I asked her to do.  Most of the time Daddy was off working in the oilfield when she would come over for the weekend, but when he was home he was a bit less thrilled about her overnight stays.  He loved my Mawmaw to death, but she never let him sleep past 4:30 a.m.  By that time of morning, she was already in the kitchen starting lunch or just putting my Mom's pots and pans where she thought that they should have been to begin with.  Being the sweetheart he was, he never told her anything about the early morning clanging of pots and slamming of cabinet doors.  He would complain to moma, but by the time he got to the kitchen he couldn't help but grin because, without fail, Mawmaw would just look at him and ask as sweetly as possible, "Pourquoi vous lever si tôt?" (Why you up so early?)


A Few Funny Tidbits about Mawmaw:

-She loved to fill out the crossword puzzle in the back of the TV Guide. How did she do it?  She would use the answer key in the following week's issue and simply copy the answers.
-She believed that moth balls were necessary to keep away all things creepy crawly.  As she grew older, she just kept throwing more and more moth balls into closets, drawers, etc.   When she passed away in 1996, I took some of her favorite gowns and other belongings and stored them in one of her suitcases.  To this day when I open it, the scent of moth balls takes me back to Mawmaw's house.
-She and my PawPaw had a love/ hate relationship.  They argued so much that I think it became their way of showing affection.  He loved to complain that she fried her chicken so long that it damn near broke his teeth to eat it.  Therefore, when she was really mad at him, she would leave HIS chicken in the grease just long enough to make sure he damn near needed new dentures by the time he finished eating it. He never got home until after we had eaten.  When he complained about his chicken yet again, she would just tell him to hush because no one else had complained about it.  Of course, he didn't know that OUR chicken was taken out of the grease about ten minutes before his chicken.  You could hear him biting into that chicken from across the house.






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Cleanliness is Next to...You Guessed It!!

On all weekdays before I began kindergarten and on all school breaks thereafter, my mother would drop me off at my grandmother’s house on her way to her eight to five job. My grandmother had never learned to drive and my grandfather was never home before at least three o’clock, so we were alone most of the time. She had a strict schedule that she had developed which included heavy daily cleaning, cooking the meal for the day, praying her rosary, watching her “stories,” and teaching me how to be a little lady. She always allowed plenty of time to play, but there was plenty of time for little lady lessons as well.


There are so many examples of ways that my grandmother taught me to be kind, gentle, and nurturing. We prayed, we rocked, she sang, we cleaned, and we played. She taught me how to dress my dolls like proper young ladies, serve coffee to guests and speak French, the only language that she and my grandfather spoke ninety percent of the time. Looking back, if I had to choose one single example of a lesson she taught me, it is undoubtedly the sweetest, and the funniest lesson of all.


I have to begin this story by telling you that my grandmother was obsessed with cleanliness. Nevertheless, she did acquiesce to my fondness for making mud pies from time to time, especially if she had to work in her garden. Though the dirt on face and homemade dresses that she had lovingly made for me must have driven her insane, she never complained, nor did I even dare to resist her ordering me straight into the bathtub as soon as we went back into the house. I must have been the cleanest kid in Louisiana! (My skin is still dry to this day.) My mother laughs to this day when she says, "Sometimes I would get back from work and you had already had three baths."   “Ladies are always clean,”  Mawmaw would say as she powdered me from head to toe and put on my second or third dress of the day. She would then sing to me, brush my hair and make me brush my teeth- again!


Now that I am a grandmother, I find myself becoming more and more like Mawmaw. I let Eleni get dirty, but I am quick to clean her up. She has a little pink tub in my bathroom and we use it often, Of course, that is after I let her eat graham crackers and make a total mess. When she goes home, I clean, clean, clean. Until then, we play, play, eat, bathe. When I rock her to sleep, I sing to her. She is so used to it that if I stop signing, she pulls out her pacifier and hums until I start signing again. As she grows older, we will play with tea sets, give her dolls baths and, yes, make mud pies. I will even teach her some French songs that my grandmother taught me. I guess I should also buy some curlers for when she gets bored. God help me! As I do these things I realize just how much my Mawmaw loved me because I feel that love for Eleni. In that way, Mawmaw lives on, and I realize that she has been with me all along.


Mawmaw's Cleaning Tips: (Many of which I still need to employ!)

-Clean something in your house every day and it will never get dirty.

-You can never have too many dish towels.

-Begin your day by cleaning; get it over with. Plus, you rest better in a clean house.

-Rinse the bathtub after every use.

-Always fix your beds in case company comes over.

-Teach your children and grandchildren to clean at an early age.

-Don't keep stuff you don't need. She had virtually no closet space, but nothing was ever, ever out of place.

-Laundry hung out in the sun smells and feels better, plus it saves electricity. I could hang laundry on the line by the time I was five! Maybe that is why I keep bugging my husband to make a clothesline for me in our backyard. I miss the smell and feel of sheets dried out in the sun.

-Always have a few items of clothing washed and wrinkle free because you want to be ready to go; you never know when you will need them. Stuff happens when you least expect it to happen. Be ready and be clean.

-Now I need to go clean my house because if she saw it this minute she would fuss me for sure!

Money Doesn't Equal Love

This precious little girl is my first grandchild, My Sunshine, Eleni Renee. My daughter named her after my Mawmaw, Elena.  Being Eleni's Mimi is such a joy. Thanks to my daughter and son-in-law, I was blessed to be there when she drew her first breath.  Thanks to God, she lives across the field from me and I can see her every day.  From day one I have called her My Sunshine because no matter how rough things get, and they do get rough, she comes into the room and I cannot help but feel joy.

Three years ago I had to quit my job because of serious health problems.  Since then my husband and I have struggled, to say the least.  It is difficult not being able to help my children financially.  I often feel guilty for getting sick.  It is also difficult not to be able to buy little Eleni all of the things that I want to buy for her.  I see dolls and cute little outfits, and I just want her to have them.  Then I think of my Mawmaw.

My grandmother didn't have a lot of money, but I never seemed to notice.  She gave me so much of her time and her love that material objects just didn't matter.  I knew that she could not afford much, so when she did give me something, anything, I treasured it.  Year after year, I watched her save her coins in a bag that she hid in her bureau.  When Christmas Time came around, everyone would get something.  She couldn't drive, so she would give my mother the money that she had set aside for me and tell her to buy me something that I wanted.  When we went over to her house on Christmas Eve to open gifts, I was happy with whatever she bought for me, but I was even more happy to just be there with her.  Besides that, her food, especially her cake, was enough to make me happy!  All of these years later, I can still taste her homemade chocolate pecan cake.  She made the simplest things so damn special!  I will find that recipe and post it here before the Holidays.

Like my grandmother, I can't give Eleni a lot of material possessions, but I can show her every day how much I love her.  I sometimes have to stop myself from kissing on that child so she can breathe!  Like my grandmother did for me, I will bake her cookies, make her pancakes, stay up late and watch television with her, and most of all, love her to pieces.  I could not for the life of me tell you about any presents that I opened at my Mawmaw's house, but I can still hear the French songs that she sang to me, I can still feel the prickly curlers that she let me put into her hair when I was bored, and I can still feel the warmth of every time she held me when I was sad.  The gifts that she gave me were priceless; they showed me in countless ways that she loved me beyond anything I could understand until I held Eleni.

Mawmaw's Money Lessons:

- She never charged anything.  She saved until she could buy it with cash.
-She never spent change, particularly dimes (her favorite).  They went into her little bag so that when Christmas came around, she just had to start wrapping coins.
-She made a lot of her own clothes and saved her "good clothes" for special occasions.  One of my biggest regrets is that I never asked her to teach me to sew.
-She cooked (or reheated leftovers) every day.  Once she splurged and took the whole family out to eat at Ryan's, the buffet restaurant.  When the waitress came over and asked her if she wanted a plate for the potato bar, she made us all laugh our asses off when she looked at her like she was crazy and asked in her thick cajun accent, "Is that extra?"   She was frugal, but always generous.  When someone gives you something and you know that they had to sacrifice and save for it, it is so much more meaningful.  I'm sure she would have loved to have bought new dresses or new shoes more often, but instead she spent her rolled up dimes on her family.  That's love!
-Finally, she made a grocery list and did not get ANYTHING that was not on that list.  When I started driving, she sent me to the grocery store with her list.  One time I bought her something that wasn't on the list and she actually made me bring it back to the store.  Lesson learned.  Now I get it, Mawmaw.