Holy Ground

A poignant photo on Facebook caught my eye yesterday as I read from a niece: "This is where Grandma and Grandpa's house use to sit. I write the insurance on it for the business that now owns the land. I told them it is Holy Ground."

Tears sprang to my eyes as I recognized the plot of land where we had so many wonderful family gatherings in the small frame house of Mama and Daddy's retirement years. It was always bursting at the seams when our large family came to visit from Mississippi and the local Texas relatives dropped in.  The trees in the picture in what had been the side and front yards reminded me of sitting in their shade in chairs from the kitchen, laughing and talking the afternoon away as laundry Mama had hung on the line flapped  in the dry Texas breeze.

She was the Holy Ghost-filled grandma who grabbed shirts from Grandpa's closet to cover the skimpy swimsuits her then-teen granddaughters were wearing to the lake. She was also the one who dragged them to revivals and services at her church, influencing their young lives (for which they are grateful to this day)!

My own Texas grandchildren came to visit us this week. They hadn't been here in a few years, and the two-year-old, never.  It always seemed simpler for us to visit them, but this year Howard's heart surgery and recuperation put our travels on hold.  We see the grandkids often on Face Time, but nothing equals seeing them play and interact in person!  On their arrival, Isaac methodically removed everything from the coffee table and  handed it to me for inspection. When asked how old he is, he said, "Half," short for 2 1/2!

One day I had made a peach cobbler as dessert for our roast beef Po-boy meal.  Isaac loved the cobbler and ate two helpings. When he came in the next day from their hotel, his first words as he headed for the kitchen were "Where de cake?" He wasn't sure what to call it, but I knew what he meant!

In the car one day, I saw Anne-Marie, 9, bury her nose in a thick book. I asked her about it and suggested she read to me.  This she did, reading with perfect tone and animated inflection the story and conversations of the characters.  Noticing all the underlined passages, circled words and notations from her pen, I questioned what they were. "Oh, I just like to do that with certain parts," she replied.  The mark of a serious learner!

They went to church with us on Sunday, and I was so proud of how willingly they went to Kids' Church and little Isaac went bravely and uncomplainingly to the nursery!  Seven-year-old Maddie was a joy (her middle name, actually,) as she looked up from her messy sandwich at lunch and said, "You were right, Mimi! It does taste better with gravy!"  (I took it as a compliment when she said the next day over a chicken casserole, "You need to give daddy your recipe for this!")

A few comments on the Facebook picture referred to a large flat rock on the property that had been the bottom step on my folk's back porch. A couple of the grandsons wrote that it had been Mama's knife rock, where she sharpened her knives. I could just see her, as I had many times, bent over in her apron whetting her knives against the stone. One of the guys spoke of the possibility of retrieving the rock.  Whether they do or not, they can never forget the Rock that their grandma pointed them to when she was still with us, living on that Holy Ground!