My Mom
“Can we pleeeeease stay at Grandmother’s house?” whines my four-year-old great nephew.
“I don’t want to go! Can I spend the night here?” his five-year-old sister chimes in.
Their three-year-old brother is defiantly refusing to put on his shoes because he, too, wants to stay. Like all of us, they love to spend time with their Great-Grandmother Lanier. It takes a lot of persuasion to get the three youngest Laniers out the door at the end of a weekend spent at my Mom’s house.
My nephew finally gets them all securely fastened in their car seats and drives away, as I wave and shout promises to see them again soon. I walk back inside and consider the peace and quiet of the house—a sharp contrast to the preceding lively 48 hours with little ones and adults gathered. I survey my mother’s house. It looks like the aftermath of a bar room brawl. A stack of wet towels is piled up in the laundry room, dirty dishes are stacked on every inch of counter space in the kitchen, and colorful pieces and parts of toys and games are strewn indiscriminately about the floor. As I round the corner into the family room, I see my 80-year-old mom slumped in the recliner in exhaustion, feet up, bedroom slippers on and eyes closed. Her normally meticulous hairdo looks like she’s braved a wind tunnel.
I am worried the weekend may have overwhelmed her. She is used to long slow mornings quietly sipping coffee and watching the birds splash in her birdbaths. But, this weekend, I found her in the kitchen at 7 a.m., coffee sitting cold on the counter while she poured cereal and milk for the kids’ breakfasts. However, to my surprise, Mom’s eyes pop open and she asks with a smile, “We had a great weekend. Didn’t we?”
I shake my head in agreement and travel away in thought.
Just two days earlier my sister and I had arrived to help prepare for our family’s holiday celebration. Easter was always an extra special holiday to my Grandmother Jarriel, and my mom carries on that tradition. When we arrived, however, everything was ready to go: the house was tidy; crisp, clean sheets were stretched across all the beds; a bucket full of water was in the backyard for our dogs to drink; she had already made the trip to the grocery store; she had boiled a pot of eggs for her famous chicken and dumplings; thawed some peas from the garden; and whipped up a fresh batch of banana pudding.
Her yard was ready for the celebration, as well. Her bold pink azaleas had burst to life surrounded by dogwood, wisteria and red bud trees. This classic landscape was breathtaking and rivaled the 14th green at Augusta National or a cover of Southern Living.
For our family, Mom's house is Grand Central Station, and Mom is the engineer who faithfully pulls our entire family along. Despite life’s twists and turns—the ups and downs—my mother has always held us together, guided us in the right direction, and kept us from flying off the tracks. We are drawn to her—always have been.
As a child, my mom’s home was a farm an hour outside of Savannah. She was born in 1937 and grew up alongside eight other siblings. Financially speaking, they were poor, as were most Americans in the aftermath of the Great Depression. She has told me that when she was young, she did not know her family was poor because she had a mother and a father who loved her, and they were rich in love and traditional southern values. After she graduated from high school, going to college was a financial impossibility, so she moved to Macon in 1954 to live with her older brother, Edwin. She attended Crandall Business School where she learned to type and take shorthand. She used those skills to get a clerical job at Robins Air Force Base.
By 1966 she was married to my dad, had three children ages 5, 3 and 1, and was living in a two-bedroom, one-bathroom home in Warner Robins. My mind whirls with watercolor memories of the three of us frolicking in the paradise that was our backyard. Mom, an avid gardener, had created that paradise one plant at a time. The centerpiece was a large shade tree, and my mother had set rectangular concrete tiles underneath it’s canopy and created a patio. On one side of the patio, she dug a flowerbed and filled it with canna lilies and bearded irises. Chrysanthemums grew along the fence separating our yard from Mrs. Brown’s yard, and in the fall, those mums would burst into showy display of yellow, purple, orange, white and lavender. Along the back fence, she’d planted althea shrubs that summoned the hummingbirds during the summertime. A plum tree showed off magnificent pale pink blossoms in the springtime and invited the three of us to climb it in the summer months and pick its pinkish-purple fruit. Like an artist with a blank canvas, Mom created that yard stroke-by-stroke, then cared and nurtured it in the same way she cared and nurtured us, and everyone around her. She wore kindness like a crown.
Though as a parent she was a strict disciplinarian, she was—and still is—genuinely one of the kindest people I have ever known. As teens, we worked in the yard and garden in the summers while our friends were laying out by the pool. We were not allowed to date until we turned 16 (not a minute before) and even then, double dates were highly preferred. When we were in high school, our plans with friends had to be relayed to her and approved before we left the house. I think about this often and understand now that this was because she loved us. She took her responsibility as a parent seriously. I think about how we are all better people because she was strong enough to set high standards for us and hold us accountable for our actions.
We grew up and left our nest—that’s what children do. My father died suddenly in 1992 and left her a young widow. She wore a green dress at his funeral because as she told me, “Green was your daddy’s favorite color.” She rebounded from that heartbreak and has continued to be a beacon of love and kindness to her three children, five grandchildren and now three great grandchildren. After my brother’s divorce, my mom’s house became a home base for him and his children. She always had food on the stove in case they stopped by and was always available to offer moral support when needed. Now 20 years later, it has become a refuge for my nephew and his three little Laniers, as well.
In 1993 I welcomed my baby girl, Savannah. Mom flew to St. Louis and rode in the car with me and my 3-month-old when we moved back to Atlanta later that same year.
The very next year, in the days before my son was born she agreed to be on standby to travel to Atlanta (though she lived two hours away) and take care of Savannah when I went into labor. On October 28,1994 at around 1:30 p.m., I made the phone call and asked her to come. Anyone familiar with Atlanta traffic can probably imagine how stressful that Friday afternoon drive must have been for her, yet somehow, she made it in record time and Jake was born at 6:30 pm.
In 1997 when I was living in Jackson, Mississippi she very gently told me that maybe it was time for me to lose that excess “baby weight” from three years earlier. I think a lot of people may get offended if someone told them that, but I was not offended at all—I realized she only wanted to help me and I was thankful she decided to tell me. The next week, I joined the YMCA and started workout classes. It was transformative for me physically, but it also turned out to be a mental break from two babies that I had not before realized I needed.
She maintains two homes and each is meticulously groomed inside and out. She has a huge vegetable garden, and she and my step dad often deliver potatoes, tomatoes, cabbage and okra to their neighbors. She keeps in touch with all of her family, friends and loved ones and there is always a Christmas gift underneath her Christmas tree for anyone she thinks may be alone or without family during the holidays. She uses her iPad to send daily emails to all of us kids and grandkids to check on how we are doing and to keep us abreast of what is going on with her.
At 80, no one would bat an eye if she chose to spend her days resting in a rocking chair watching the world go by, but that’s not who she is. She chooses to host the busy, noisy, chaotic, messy and unscripted weekend get-togethers my family has become accustomed to.
And that’s what I thought of at the close of the Easter weekend when Mom looked at me and asked, “We had a great weekend. Didn’t we?”
We sure did, Mom. And we’ve had a great life, too, and it is all because of you and your selfless sacrifices, endless love, and everlasting kindness. Happy Mother’s Day! There’s no place like home.