Beech Tree News Network

Garey and I got a scare on Easter week-end.  His mom, Agnes, had a mild heart attack—if there is such a thing—and ended up in the hospital for most of the following week.  Up until that moment, I think we had both viewed her as invincible.

Agnes is one of those people who has always been very health conscious.  She subscribes to various magazines that feature healthy life style tips, and she has many medical reference books.  Agnes is a true believer in vitamins and natural supplements, and it’s difficult to get her to take a simple aspirin when she has an ache or a pain.  I can’t find fault with her philosophy, since it has gotten her through 83 years with very few health problems.  I think that’s why the heart attack incident shook me so soundly.  I tried to imagine a world without her, and I couldn’t.

Agnes has been in my life for 37 years.  She taught me all I know about pie-baking, okra frying and pea shelling.  She taught me the best techniques for freezing and canning vegetables, making button holes, and getting stains out of clothes.  We’ve worked side by side in her garden and at her stove and learning new crafts.  Even though she lives in Alabama and I live in Kentucky, we’ve never let the miles separate us for long.

I think Agnes and I get along so well because we both like people who are real, and Agnes is very real.  There is no pretense in any of her relationships.  Even though it can be very frustrating to her children at times, I also like the fact that Agnes is independent.  She has very definite ideas about how things should be done.  If you try to push her into anything, she’ll knot up on you like a chain.  This frustrates the daylights out of her daughter, Charlotte, who also has very definite ideas about how things should be done, and they are often in direct opposition to Agnes’s.

Over the years, Garey and I have learned how and why Agnes does some of the things she does, and we try not to push her on non-life-threatening issues.  I learned a lot early-on just by playing Monopoly with her on weekend visits.  The woman will not let go of a piece of property.  It doesn’t matter if she owns Boardwalk, and you’re willing to swap your Park Place for her St. Charles Place—giving her a monopoly on the most expensive properties on the board—she will not let go of Saint Charley.

Agnes is the same way with real property.  If she owns it, you will not pry it from her clutches.  She has always told us she holds on to property, because she will need the income from the sale of it if she has to go to the hospital.  She has also saved every gown, robe and pair of house shoes she has ever received since I’ve been in the family, in the event that she has to go to the hospital.  I find this ironic, since she has never had to go to the hospital in the thirty-seven years since I’ve known her until this past Easter.  What I find even more ironic is the fact that when she got ready to go to the hospital over Easter week-end, she couldn’t remember where she had stashed the collection of hospital apparel and ended up wearing the godawful, backless hospital gowns all week.

The thing I respect most about Agnes is the kind of mother she has been to Garey and the kind of grandmother she has been to Nikki, Natalie, and Natalie’s daughter, Sabria.  Agnes has been there for every one of her grandchildren’s first birthday’s, even Sabria’s.  She truly loves children and they love her.  Throughout all of our lives Agnes (Mama Ag to her grandchildren) has been present.  Not just there.  Present.  Not wishing she were somewhere else.  Present.  She has been there for us—all of us—and that’s not something I can say about another person.

I can’t remember who said it, but I love the quote: “Wherever you are, be you all there.”  Agnes was, and still is, and she is truly my other mother.