The Colors of My Mind

When you're out walking and you're looking at gorgeous scenery like this one above you can't help but think of days gone by. Today as I was walking I thought of a song by Dolly Parton, "Coat of Many Colors". My grandmother Jezzie use to love that song and she gave me a 45 of it when I was quite young. I bet I played that thing until it was warped. I also thought of a conversation I had with my mom the other day at lunch about my grandmother Jezzie. It's amazing at what I remember and what my mother never knew until that conversation. My grandmother also liked the song "Abra Abra Cadabra" and "Little Pink Houses". These are not songs you would have thought someone of my grandmothers generation would have liked and my mom had no clue she did. I remember the conversation with my grandmother about these songs like it was yesterday. I am sure on some level my grandmother was just attempting to find a level playing field on which to communicate with a teenage granddaughter. My grandmother Jezzie was unique though on many levels and could quiet often surprise you. She loved wrestling. She was a woman to admire on many levels. She had married a man who all ready had more than enough children on his own. He was also sixteen years older than my grandmother and amazingly she outlived him by exactly sixteen years. My grandpa was a Baptist minister and his wife had run off and left him with children and in need of a help mate. I think she did an excellent job not only of being there for him, but for his children. I often heard my grandmother speak of how should could not have loved her step children anymore if they had been her own. She went on to have eight "surviving" children of her own with my grandpa. I say surviving because I also remember her mentioning miscarriages. Miscarriages were not uncommon for that day. Women often worked hard in the fields long into their pregnancies and sometimes right up until delivery. My grandmother never had much money and I can count the things that she gave me on one hand as I was growing up. A watch, a purse, a few records... But she didn't' need money because the many colorful moments with her are etched in my mind. Isn't that what counts in life that so many forget way too often? The memories we have and are allowed to carry with us even when someone is gone. My grandmother died in 1986, but in my mind I can still see her face and hear her voice. I still remember the smile and the hugs. Yes she was sick the last couple of years of her life and I remember those bad times and I have images I could drudge up of that time, but I prefer to bring forth the wonderful memories I have. The ones that as this beautiful scenery are now the colors of my mind and shall be forever. The fall colors are a reminder of change to come and a life winding down. In the spring the flowers and the tree buds will bring everything all new. Unlike the tree leaves though my memories will hopefully never die and shall live on.