By JoAnn Durgin
As much as writing fiction is a
driving passion at this stage of my life, I adore the opportunity to occasionally
write about my “real life.”
Of course, many of my experiences
have eventually found their way into a book. As such, I believe they lend a certain
depth of realism that resonates with the reader. Both good and bad, bittersweet
or joyous, my unique memories have shaped me into the woman I am today. I’d
like to share with you some memories of my Granny, my Dad’s mother. I am
independent like Granny. My daughter, Chelsea, resembles her physically and I
can see my grandmother in my daughter’s smile. Granny taught me to be strong in
the face of adversity and follow my dreams. I like to think I inherited some of
her creativity and sense of humor, as well as her positivity and optimism.
When I was three, my parents
divorced—a still rather uncommon event at that time. As she tells it, my mom
was tired of my Dad’s “ridiculous dreams,” including his elaborate plans to
build a bomb shelter in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis and his
proclivity to chain smoke cigarettes. In some ways, I’m not sure he knew how to
be a father. But in the quiet ways, he showed us he loved us by building things
with his hands, including an elaborate dollhouse for me, complete with working
electricity and chandeliers hand-beaded by Granny.
After they divorced, Daddy picked
up my older brother and me on alternate weekends and he’d take us to visit
Granny (with whom he lived at the time) a few miles away. She lived in an old
but well-maintained two-story white house on Utica Pike, a narrow, two-lane
road and homes with long, gravel driveways and sweeping front yards dotted with
large weeping willow and gorgeous mimosa trees. We’d bake apple pies with fruit
we picked in the backyard, string pearls, sip iced tea on the screened-in
summer porch. My brother and I played with some of the same toys that belonged
to my dad and his two brothers—antique toy soldiers probably worth a small
fortune today. We listened to her stories of our grandfather’s and father’s respective
stints in the Army and heard many a tale about the great flood of ’37 (the “big
one” that destroyed their favorite puppet show theatre). Stories of when the
Ohio River froze over and they could slip and slide from Indiana to Kentucky.
Tales of the Happy Hunting Grounds, her term for Heaven. Granny smelled of
peppermints and Jungle Gardenia. She wore handknitted dresses she made with her
increasingly arthritic hands. And she had a stole made from a real fox—head
included—that scared us to death.
Some of my sweetest memories are
sitting in her front yard, cheering on the Belle of Louisville steamboat as it
raced Cincinnati’s Delta Queen on the Ohio River in late April, a week or two before
the Kentucky Derby each year. When I was seven, Granny took me to the National
Doll Club Convention, held in Louisville that year. I’ll admit I was
embarrassed to be dressed up like a doll. Even had a write-up in the local
newspaper, “Living Doll Attends Doll Show” featuring a photo of me in the dress
she made and my doll with a matching outfit. I’ll never forget the pride in
Granny’s voice as she introduced me to her doll club collector friends and
bragged about how talented and special I was. She believed in me, and I’ll never forget that.
By this time, Daddy had remarried
and, for various reasons, there was a period of time when we didn’t see him—or
Granny—as much. Before I knew it, I’d graduated from high school and then college
and moved to Dallas, independent and ready to greet the world and make my mark.
I saw Granny every time I came home for the holidays and she was spunky and
active as ever although she’d finally moved into a retirement center. She was
born for a place like that. When she started painting in her 70s or thereabouts,
she called herself a “Grandma Moses wannabe.” Granny lived the type of life all
of us would wish—rich and full with laughter, faith, family and friends. She
had a heart attack at 82, and the Lord kept her around long enough to gather
her three boys beside her to tell them she loved them before she made the leap
into the Happy Hunting Grounds and onto the next adventure.
Yes, Granny had a very strong
influence on the woman I am today, the mother I am today and yes, the writer I am today. If you’ve read my
debut novel, Awakening, you might recognize my heroine Lexa’s grandmother,
Nana, down to the details of stringing pearls and sipping tea on the summer
porch. And yes, even a mention of the Happy Hunting Grounds. She taught me
that—with the Lord’s help—I could do whatever I wanted. Dream big. And so I
did.
I trust you have a “Granny” in your life, whether in cherished memories
or beside you to hold your hand and help you see the best in people and life’s
situations, both good and bad.
Sleep well, Granny. I love you
dearly, and I’ll see you again one day.
Blessings, friends. Matthew 5:16
JoAnn lives with her husband, Jim, and three children in her native southern (stress that part) Indiana. She's a full-time estate administration paralegal by day and contemporary Christian romance author by night.
Daydreams, the fourth in her popular
Lewis Legacy Series, just released from Torn Veil Books.
Meet Me Under the Mistletoe, a Christmas novella from Pelican Group/White Rose Publishers, released in late 2012, as well as
Please, a short fiction piece in
I Choose You, an anthology of love stories released in late 2012 from Oak Tara Publishers. She'd love to hear from you via her website at
www.joanndurgin.com or on Facebook at her Author JoAnn Durgin page.
Note: This was originally published on Christine Lindsay's blog on March 4, 2013.
