Firm

7 days gone, now.

She was a woman of firm convictions. She was not easily shaken from those beliefs either.

Back when Shag I were little, she had portraits done by a photographer in Moultrie. The lady was lesbian. How Ma knew this, I dunno. This was in the 70s, when same-gender attraction was not accepted. In the Deep rural South, it could amount to a death sentence.

She didn't care. She was more concerned with who the person was.

Over the years she met more people with a same-sex attraction. Didn't matter to her. What mattered was how well the person did with what they had. Very Dr. Martin Luther King right there.

Aunt Jeanne asked what Mom would do if one of her kids turned out homosexual. (We are not.) "I'd love him just the same." Aunt Jeanne said she was not sure she could do that.

She didn't care about skin color, nationality or other such things. If she welcomed you into her house, you were family.

I like to believe I share that outlook.

For someone who had such an open mind about sexual attraction, I find it odd that she hated porn. A Playboy in the house was ... let's not go there. She burned all that kind of stuff if she found it. A few months before she had the wreck and so forth, the topic somehow got into porn. She still hated it. "They (the women) are all on drugs anyway."

I didn't bother arguing with her.

She was quick to tell people, My House. My Rules. If you don't like it, leave. A distant cousin had a falling out with his parents. He moved in with us for a few months. He's now living in Mobile, I think, and is a woman and a hairdresser. This cousin did get fed up with the rules for living in her house and moved out.

That attitude got stronger over the years. By the time she moved to Tifton, she'd lived along so long she did not want anyone in her house more than a few hours. That included her two sons and grandkids.

She generally kept beer in the fridge for Shag and I. She did not mind people having a drink in her house. She kept a bottle of wine in the fridge too. But if you got drunk, as the brother of a family friend found out, you got the full Suzy attitude about that.

House rules. That's an attitude I inherited for sure. My place, my rules. Ya don't like it, you ain't gotta be here.

It came around to bite her too, She was at one place we lived and made some remark about the house.

"Ya don't like it, don't come back," I said. She knew I meant it.

That was the end of that subject, permanently.

It took her a long time to adjust to the reality that her first grandson has Down Syndrome. She so wanted to blame someone for that extra chromosome. Her desire to get up in someone's face about it and shout them down was almost palpable at times. She still loved Jesse and time allowed her to come to grips with his disability and accept him for who he is.

One day down at the house in Tallahassee, Jesse put some Silly Putty on the back of a chair.

She exploded. Mt. Vesuvius all over Jesse.

I stepped in.

Nope. Stop. "He does not understand."

She stopped, on him. She sat down in her chair still complaining.

"Hey. We can leave and we don't have to come back," I said as I scraped it off.

That stopped most of the complaining.

"I never had problems like that with you and Shag," she said.

"We also have IQs over 150," I said.

Reality slapped her across the face with that one. She started crying and apologizing.

Over the last few years, I stopped trying to convince her of things. I just let it slide by. She became forgetful. I quit reminding her as it irked her. I just let it ride. I let her talk about anything she wanted to talk about. If I had evidence proving her wrong, it stayed with me. It made our time together enjoyable.

I do not like the fact our last conversation was when she was in the rehab center in Tifton. She complained about the place, calling it a "hell-hole." But I do like the fact that we talked about what she wanted to talk about. The last time I saw her in person, it too was a good visit.

I hugged her gently (her shoulders also caused her a lot of pain), kissed her forehead and said, "Call if you need me. Love you Ma."

"I will. And you call me if you need me. Love you."

Anyone got the telephone number to Heaven?