Voices

"Julie, I thought I heard your mama's mama's voice!" my son-in-law Steve exclaimed as he came out from a convenience store to where our daughter was waiting in the car. They were in Tennessee, near the area where my mother lived until she was 12 years old, before her family moved to Texas. "I could have sworn I was listening to your Grandma!"

He had overheard a conversation which obviously reflected the dialect of the Tennessee mountains! My mom did have a unique way of speaking, especially if she was telling a story. She was good at that. Her masterful tale-telling in her country vernacular kept any listener enthralled, as often as not inducing side-splitting laughter in those paying rapt attention, hanging on every word. I can still hear her dramatic, drawn-out descriptions and the way she prefaced her remarks by saying, "Now listen at this!"

Of course, Mama's voice was at its best when she was telling of the goodness of God. When a family member might have a seemingly insurmountable problem, the spunky red-head would often remind them emphatically, "God is the biggest!" Her favorite Bible verse was "In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy path," Proverbs 3:6. And acknowledge Him she did!

Mama was a prayer warrior. As such, her voice was often heard from her bedroom lifted in praise and supplication to her Lord for her large family.

We attended a funeral a couple of weeks ago, after my husband had exclaimed over seeing the obituary in the newspaper of a long-ago friend. We hadn't seen her in more than 50 years, since we had lived away so long, but old memories run deep. We hardly recognized her family members we met there, but talk flowed easily of the old good times. Howard recalled when the departed had worked at his father's grocery store/meat market; and I approached a middle-aged lady playing with her grandchild who I remembered as a three-year-old my mother-in-law used to baby-sit while her mother worked at said store.

Howard recalled laughingly how he could still hear his father's voice advising him to always refer to the chickens in the meat-case as "Arkansas fryers." And to stress to the customers that the hamburger "had just enough fat and just enough lean" in it, plus the fact that "bone-in roasts and chops taste best!"

My mother's voice still reverberates in the hearts of loved ones left behind, and has guided many in life choices. But I would love to go to her home place in Tennessee and hear those endearing local voices for myself!