Mother's Day Week Tribute #2: The Scratchy Mother in Our Lives

This is my grandmother, Charlotte Flowers Triplett Riggs. She was a scratchy lady. You'd think a Southern lady from Lenoir, NC, would be warm and welcoming, sweet, soft, huggie and loving to children, grandchildren, friends and all family close and far. She wasn't. My darling grandmother was a reclusive, distant, very standoffish woman. She didn't emote. :]

She didn't like to hug, and she didn't say, "I love you." She was a Victorian.

What she did do is serve. She gave of herself. She baked delicious meals, cakes, pies, cookies and canned goods which she made sure found their way into the hearths and hands of everyone she did love, and whom she found with a need both physical and emotional. What she did was pray. She was a prayer warrior...those who understand what that means will be in awe of that. And what she also did was take in a child like me who had lost a daddy and mother at the age of 5. Even though she had already raised 9 children of her own, and I'm sure she was desperately tired of having young children around, she took me in as a full time "child of her own" for nearly 3 years.

When she was dying at a relatively early age of 70 years old, she called for me and told me she loved me. Told me she loved me and hugged me, tightly.

Here's what she taught me, too:

*The Bible~scriptures by the day in our daily walk. She would quote scripture as she did housework...

*Songs. She sang all the time. She loved to sing. I love to sing, too.

*She taught me to pray and how God would always hear our prayers.

*She taught me The Lord's Prayer.

*She taught me The 23rd Psalm...."The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want..." When I was afraid or couldn't sleep at night, she told me this would always help me.

*She took me (along with my Uncle Dude) to church every single Sunday, placed me in my Sunday School class--took me to Wednesday night prayer meetings and made sure I knew that

Jesus loved me.

*She taught me to be kind to others no matter what, and to always "turn the other cheek."

*She taught me to "Judge not, that you be not judged."

*She taught me about plants, and about crocheting and books.

*and she kept a journal!

I loved my Grandmother Riggs above anyone on earth when I was a little girl, and I still hold her in a very special place in my heart today. I look forward to the day I'll be rejoined with her in Heaven.

\So, on this day of Mother's Day week,

I want to honor my very scratchy

Grandmother Riggs~ Charlotte Flowers Triplett Riggs

one of the great loves of my life.