By Reba Phelps
By the time I reached the youthful age of twelve years old, I no longer had any living grandparents. My father was the youngest of eleven children, so his parents were very long in the tooth. My mother was an only child whose own mother passed away when she was seven years old. She was then raised by her granny, (cousins, uncles, and aunts too) my great granny…but she too passed when I was in elementary school. During this time, I was pea green with envy of friends and family who still had their grandparents in their lives.
When I started dating my children’s father, I was astonished to know that he still had a living grandmother. Mamaw Rosie. Instantly upon meeting her, we became friends. She was a sassy, spoiled, witty, Southern woman who was full of extra hugs for the girl who had no grandparents of her own. When it came time to make plans for our wedding, she asked me if I had any grandparents that would be attending the wedding. It felt like a tiny stab in the heart to admit, I had none.
This didn’t phase Mamaw Rosie at all. Her quick wit uttered a few words I will never forget.
“I am grandma enough for both of you.” Her Southern drawl and prolonging her vowel sounds always made me smile. She took this grandmothering position very seriously.
It also didn’t take me long to realize the family tradition of everyone going to her house for Thanksgiving. Every Thanksgiving. There was no debate. Her children, their spouses, her grandchildren, any boyfriends, girlfriends and sometimes even pets were all expected to be at her Thanksgiving table.
It was always explained to me as “we all go to Mamaw Rosie’s because it may be her last Thanksgiving.”
So, this was the explanation that I gave my parents as well. Much to my surprise they understood my impending absence from Thanksgiving the first year we were married. The second year we were married I explained the same thing again. My parents were patient and understood again. Sparing you the countdown of my yearly explanations… by the time ten of these “last Thanksgivings” rolled around, my mother was feeling like I could attend at least one of her Thanksgivings…being that Mamaw Rosie was apparently getting healthier every year that passed.
It soon became an inside joke on my side of the family. “Reba is now attending the fifteenth last Thanksgiving”.
Needless to say, we indeed had eighteen last Thanksgivings with Mamaw Rosie and the family in Mississippi. They were beautiful celebrations in which we watched children grow up year by year. We watched aunts and uncles collect more symbolic gray hairs ever single year. We celebrated every year together until she passed away on an unsuspecting April day.
At her funeral, I told my daughters that God blessed Rosie with eighteen last Thanksgivings.
The truth is, we do not know when our last holiday will be. No one knows when their last day on earth will be. If we did, we wouldn’t waste time with petty family squabbles, bitterness or grudges. God only gives us so many heartbeats before our time here is complete. My prayer is that you choose to spend your time proclaiming the goodness of God, loving on the people the God puts in your path, loving the unlovable, and constantly forgiving those who do you harm.
Our time here is nothing but a vapor. Cherish your family. Hold them close. Eighteen last Thanksgivings went by in a flash.
“Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and vanishes.”
James 4:14