My grandmother was one of twelve children born to a farming family. All of them lived to grow up, though some died as young adults. They were not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination and my grandmother wasn't the youngest nor the eldest but somewhere in the lower middle. Born into a small farming town in rural southern Virginia, my grandmother never lived anywhere else and in the last thirty years of her life, she lived less than a mile from the home where she was born. Many times before the home was declared off limits because it was no longer safe, I crawled around checking out this house that held so many. No indoor plumbing and smaller than almost any house I know these days. I always wondered where they put all those children but I guess they just stacked them somewhere. I suspect personal space did not exist in my grandmother's youth.
She was an interesting woman, she had this interesting way of telling stories, the details always wrong and the point being one she wanted to make, whether the story was really about that or not. My grandfather used to listen until his patience was gone and he would announce loudly. "Ah Nell, that is not the way it happened." When I was a child that was enough to silence my grandmother but as I grew older, and she did as well, she began to argue back some. My siblings and I enjoyed "Ah Nell" almost as much as anything else my grandfather ever said.
She was a good if simple cook and worked many years along side my grandfather on the farm. They were not partners as I understand the word, my grandfather was the last word and he held all the responsibility for the children and for her, but they worked well together and enjoyed one another very much. My grandfather was a reserved stoic man in my early years but as he aged he also mellowed and the younger cousins could often talk him into a game of hide and seek. My grandmother entertained by assigning us jobs and letting us 'help'. She also had this knack with socks. She could take these work socks and turn them into things we could play with, most often a sock monkey, though I have had a baby doll or two in my day made from white socks. I did not know anyone when I was growing up who had a grandmother who made sock monkeys. I lived in the city and there everyone had grandmothers who made pasta or kielbasa but not sock monkeys. I was an oddity and I am not sure I looked at the sock monkey as a badge of honor.
My grandmother would make, for my siblings and I, a pair of pajamas for Christmas. I have countless pictures of my sister, my brothers and myself standing in front of the Christmas tree wearing our Christmas pajamas. Always the same general color, made from flannel and opened with the same sort of response each year. Someone would find your package, wrapped in bright Christmas paper and toss it over to you saying, "Sus, here are your Christmas pajamas." As we got older and my grandmother had more difficulty sewing, the pajamas stopped and so did the sock monkeys. One year though my grandmother was in the crafty mode and she made me a Santa Clause out of white yarn that I have to this day. She made me two actually, the first one was consumed by one of the dogs we had through the years. When she made the second one she told me to keep it high and I have.
Over the years I have come to discover that sock monkeys weren't invented by my grandmother. I see they are making a comeback and tonight I found a sock monkey ornament. Of course I had to buy it and it will grace our tree, but isn't it interesting how a few years and a new perspective change the way you look at things. I am old enough now to know that the things that matter are those that return a memory, that remind you of a blessing and bring back to your thoughts someone who you dearly loved. Not in the rosy glasses kind of way, but in a very real, very vivid, contemporary kind of way. I stood in the middle of the store and I could hear my grandmother say my name, or one of my cousins names trying to get to mine. I can right now picture the chair in the living room and photo albums and see the table that used to belong to my great grandmother but now graces my dining room. I can picture the kitchen and the table and chairs and the library table. The library table makes me think of my cousin, also graduated into eternity. I often wonder if she enjoyed the table as much as she had hoped she would.
My grandparents were faithful Methodists all their lives. I often chuckle when I stop to think about working for the Methodist Church. I am quite sure they know and they probably discuss it often. My grandmother starts the stories, the details all wrong and after a bit my grandfather chimes in "Ah Nell" and the battle begins. My dad is there and he rolls his eyes and goes on reading the paper. I can't imagine the three of them any differently.
God blesses us with heritage. Some of it is comforting, its affirming, it tells us we belong to family and tradition. Some of it is less so, there are skeletons in most closets and some painful memories. Some of us spend our lives trying to live better than our roots and some of us trying to live out of them. The word for all of us is redemption. There is much to be redeemed for all and there is much redemption that is coming, some in this life, some in the next. Redemption is a promise and we can count on God to do what He says He will do, in His own way and in His own time. Today as I stood in the store looking at my sock monkey I see some of the injury and woundedness from my childhood being redeemed. The very thing that used to tell me I was different from my friends, my background was different and I didn't quite fit in, told me that I belonged to a family who did it's best to love it's members. Even if that meant sock monkeys.
Who knows this year someone may make me pajamas and make me a new sock monkey. In fact, we could start having a traditional sock monkey Christmas. Redemption at it's very best.
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