Her name was Ruth Hedge. She was my Grandmother, and the woman that taught me about God, and about being humble and gentle and kind. She lived her life by a motto, and taught me to live mine the same way: to always give more than you take, and to always love.
My Mother and Father built a house across the road from my Grandparents on a lot where an old house used to be. It was buried to make way for the new one.
To my Mother, I'm sure it was like going back home again. She was going to live in the same place where she grew up. She was going to be able to look out her front door and see the house she'd lived in for many years. Mainly, she was going to be home again. Just a walk a cross the street to her Mother's house. To the woman that she loved very much. I'm sure she had many plans for the two of them.
I'm sure it wasn't in her plans for her Mother to die just a few short years after she built her home there. She didn't know that she would be taking care of this woman until she passed away. I do know that my Mother would not have had it any other way. God works in myterious ways sometimes. He brought my Mother home when her Mother needed her the most.
I never lived in the house that my parents built then. I was already gone from home. My brother and three sisters did live there for a few years, and one by one they too moved away. My parents divorced and my Mother lived there for years. She remarried and eventually moved to the country. The house in Hedgeville was calling my name, and I listened with my heart, and I moved there with my family.
My kids never got to meet her. She was gone before they were born. But my Grandfather still lived in the old house ... and my kids knew him. He was rough. But he was tender with them. He loved them and he lined them out. They grumbled, but secretly, they loved living in Hedgeville.
He'd sit on his porch swing early in the morning and smoke a cigarette. Most mornings he was working in the garden or mowing his yard by six o'clock. I remember my kids complaining about the buzz of his lawn mower so early in the morning.
He got older and they got bigger, and then they mowed for him. It was never at six in the morning, and he grumbled. They grinned, and did it their way.
Many mornings in the summer, my youngest son Jared would cook breakfast for my Grandfather and they would eat under the shade tree in his yard. My Grandfather loved that boy as much as he loved Hedgeville.
There's more to come next time. Be Blessed Everyone.
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