a new year has begun. perhaps i should be looking forward, but christmas is still fresh in my mind. i am reminded of past christmases, especially those of my childhood. christmas day back then was a day of traveling to my grandparents' home about an hour away. their home would be packed with relatives--aunts, uncles, great-aunts and -uncles, cousins, and my great-grandmother. it is about this remarkable woman that i want to write this week.
"grandma kate" lived with my maternal grandparents. she was the mother of my grandmother and had helped to raise my mother and her brothers. she was born sometime around the end of the civil war. no one is certain because official records from those days were often missing. she claimed to have been born in 1865, but she also claimed to remember events that occurred during the war between the states. her own mother had married an itinerant musician, leaving their family home in rural southwest arkansas to live in his home in pine bluff, a town about fifty miles southeast of little rock. when my great-great-grandmother discovered that her husband was having an affair with another woman, she left in the middle of the night while her husband was out carousing and took her daughter, my great-grandmother, and all the household goods she could load in the buckboard with her. she made her way back to her family's farm, and it was there that my grandma kate grew up.
she married my great-grandfather. they farmed in the same community where both had been raised. their family was large with three sons and four daughters reaching adulthood. soon after my grandmother's youngest sister was born, my great-grandfather died. grandma kate continue to operate the family farm and provide for her seven children. when my aunt bess, the youngest child, married, grandma kate sold the farm and went to live with her and her husband. aunt bess' husband passed away, and my aunt remarried. grandma kate didn't get along with the new husband and went to live with my grandmother and grandfather.
the difficulties she faced in the aftermath of the civil war haunted her throughout her life. one of the privations she and her family endured was the scarcity and expense of coffee, which for her symbolized the struggles she faced. one of my most vivid memories of her was watching as she lifted one of the youngest of her great-grandchildren onto her lap at the christmas dinner table. my grandmother's table seated twelve easily, and at christmas time extra chairs were added so that everyone could be seated around it. my grandmother did not subscribe to the idea of a "children's table" away from the adults, believing that all the children should take part in the meal and accompanying conversation along with the adults. at the end of the meal, grandma kate would prepare her after-dinner coffee with plenty of cream and sugar. once she had lifted one of her great-grandchildren onto her lap, she would pour some of the sweet, hot coffee into her saucer, then take some into her spoon and blow on it to cool it. she would then spoon the coffee into the chosen child's waiting mouth, as she reminded the gathered crowd that she was determined that no one in her family would ever have to do without coffee again.
we all, from the youngest to the oldest, were served coffee with our meal. that cup of coffee became a symbol of the love that united our family across four generations. it told each of us that we never had to endure want as long as another member of the family was able to provide for us. there was always a pot of coffee available in my grandmother's house. it was brewed first thing in the morning, and the pot was renewed whenever it was emptied. i never saw my grandmother during a waking moment without a coffee mug nearby, and grandma kate's words reminded us all of the enduring love that the constant availability of coffee in that household represented. not surprisingly, we all became great coffee lovers, a trait that my mother passed on to her children and that i have passed on to mine. each time i drink a cup, i am reminded of grandma kate, of her refusal to give in to the difficulties that life presented her with, of her wonderful stories of growing up in rural arkansas, of the quirks of her many relatives and their descendants, and of her great love for every member of her family, and, with seven living children, that family was quite large.
it may seem odd that a simple beverage could encapsulate love across so many generations of our family. coffee for us is more than a stimulating, warming drink. it is the tie that binds us all together, a symbol of the legacy of a terrible war fought more than one hundred and fifty years ago and of the importance of family in giving us the strength to carry on in the face of adversity and the obligation we have to one another to help in times of need.
may we live with gratitude for those who have gone before us. may we recognize their gifts to us and pass those on to those who come after us. may we see that family is more than blood relationship, realizing that all sentient beings are part of our family. shalom.
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