Some days...

This post is not really relevant to parenting or cloth diapering, but it's how I've been feeling today.
Some days are harder than others. It could be due to stress or mess (as is usually the case for me) or just an all-around bad day.
Then there are days like today. I don't know why, but I have been missing my grandmother, Mamaw Reba, more today than I usually do. She passed away February 2008 at the age of 89, just four weeks before our first son was born. She was such a special lady, who loved nothing more than watching birds and doing word search puzzles. She made the best biscuits and peach cobbler. I inherited her cobbler dish and every time I use it, I wish it was her cobbler in the dish instead of mine. She also told the best stories. My favorite involved my dad and his brothers making a homemade rocket and setting it off while my grandfather was taking a nap. She told me about what it was like to raise children deep in the mountains of East Tennessee during and after World War II. Hearing her stories made me long for simpler times. And the way she told it, she wouldn't have traded it for anything. She tried to teach me how to make "cat-head" biscuits, so named because of their size (as big as a cat's head). But I still have not mastered them (and probably never will), even after many failed attempts.

Mamaw and me on my wedding day, 2005

Physically, we don't favor each other much at all, but I do have her hands. The large, square palms and long-ish, slightly crooked fingers of mine were hers as well. Even if this is the only feature of hers I possess, it is one that I feel so blessed to have. I can look down at them any time I want and remember all the things her hands accomplished. They deftly worked biscuit dough into a perfectly round shape. They mashed my potatoes just right and chopped cabbage for cole slaw. They hoed a garden and pulled weeds every year until she was 86. They threaded needles to make hand-sewn quilts (and one, I hope to finish in the future). They swatted my brother's and my behind when we got out of line. They helped cut out paper dolls and make flowers out of tissue paper. They pointed out all the different types of birds.
I have so many fond memories of Mamaw, I could probably write a book. And it is for these memories that I will forever be thankful. I was so blessed to get to spend time with that wonderful lady and bask in the wisdom that all her years lent her. I can't wait until my boys are old enough to understand just how precious she was to me. It breaks my heart that they will never know her. Her laugh, her kindness, her sweet spirit. It is my hope and prayer that when I speak of her, I can do her justice.