Recalling Mabel for a day

Legacy remains clear and strong

“For whatever we lose (like a you or a me), It’s always our self we find in the sea.” — e. e. cummings

The teenage girl gripped the sides of the small rowboat. High winds had forced the boat from the bay into the roaring open sea. The sudden storm had literally ripped the oars from her hands as she tried in vain to reach the slowly disappearing shoreline. Now, to her terror, a whirlpool loomed ahead and seized the little craft, sending the boat spiraling downwards to certain death. My grandmother took a sip of her coffee and let the story end there. “I’ve had that dream my entire life,” she told me without emotion. “At least I never die at the end,” she concluded, this time with a hint of a smile. My grandmother had just turned 89 earlier that week, and I had driven down to her home to visit. A pioneer woman in the literal sense, she was tough, smart, loving, hated Yankees, could whip anyone in Chinese checkers, loved her family. Did I mention she loved her family? The feeling was mutual. Her sense of memory burned brightly in all conversations, always close at hand, close to her heart. She was born Mabel Christian Nash on March 20, 1900, in St. Petersburg, Fla. During the Civil War, her grandmother left northern Florida with her family, all their belongings in an ox cart, and walked all the way to St. Pete after their farm had been burned by Union soldiers. Her other grandmother came down from Georgia, by foot as well, led by her beloved grandfather, who had a lame left arm due to an injury sustained while serving in the Georgia militia. Her grandparents would instill in her a bitter animosity toward all things Yankee. Talk about hearing the roar of the guns, this woman could still smell the smoke. She was the second born of 16 children. Both her mother and father died within six months of each other, leaving 16-year-old

Mabel in charge with her older sister. They quickly formulated a strategy: As each oldest child would get married, they would take the youngest to raise. The family would always stay together. Now at 89 years old, her husband dead some 15 years earlier, she occupied her time with gardening, reading history and keeping up with her two daughters and three grandchildren. I had questions that wintry day, and she would tell it straight. “What’s it like to be 89?” I asked as we sat in her kitchen, the bright yellow chairs catching a small glint of sunshine. “Well, I tell you, I don’t feel 89; I feel like I’m 27 years old,” she replied without irony. “I would say the toughest thing is all my friends are dead, all my brothers and sisters, too. I miss them.” I remember being at her house often growing up. She bought me my first skateboard, paid me 5 cents for political cartoons I would draw for her, and there was always a mango ripening on her window sill, always ice pops in her freezer. When I was in high school, I dug out a first edition of George Orwell’s Animal Farm from her garage. “Granny, is this yours?” I asked, walking into the kitchen. “Yes, of course, good book.” She was no saint: She could be hard, and she could be blind. She never forgot; she rarely forgave. My memories are bright, too. It’s a long and slow surrender, retreating from the past. There are casualties along the way. You slowly become the sole holder of parts of your history. As winter approaches, the leaves will fall and never come again. No one tell you this. No one needs to. You slowly close the door on all those memories, leaving them forever there. You slowly crack it back open when they cry out at night. My grandmother died a year later. While she was at the hospital I showed her a picture of my newborn daughter. I named her after her, Christian. She hated the name Mabel. It was the least I could do. I’d like to think that if, at the very end, if she dreamed of that boat one last time, it finally ended not with the whirlpool, but this time gliding back to the shore, back into the hearts and arms of all those long awaiting her.