Oh, Carol. I wrote this several years ago in my gardeners' journal, one cool clear April day when bridal wreath was in bloom because it reminds me of her. She was beautiful when she was young, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Her hair was raven colored, her cheek bones framed the most beautifully architectural face and her eyes were like chestnuts. In the picture I saw, her waist could not have been more than 18 inches cinched in a laced corset, no doubt, but she was young and though beautiful, the white blouse with its high collar and pearl buttons complimented the face already terse with tracking miles, but the long black taffeta-like skirt lent a beautifully softness to this remarkable woman. Her fingers were long, as if manicured to give them a bony look so they accentuated the single gold ring with a lone diamond that adorned her left ring finger. The only other jewelry she wore was the single strand of pearls and the pearl-buttoned blouse. The picture in black and white was growing tired and becoming gray and yellow but it showed the true character of this beautiful woman, a young bride who had just finished breast-feeding her first child. Many miles, many Sundays and many hardships from that day, this woman who hand-fed her sick animals, made sure every homeless person who traveled the dirt road to her door was fed a decent meal, breast fed her babies, hand fed her animals, milked cows, plucked eggs, wrung the necks of the chickens she loved so that her family might eat, suffered the Great Depression, buried a child in the lonely cold January wind of a Texas snow. She was a midwife to many, a respite for all that came her way. She could bait a fishing hook and catch a meal, scale the fish and fry them up, and serve with style on an Army Navy tablecloth, a gift from a loving nephew who served in the European theatre. The blue and white China gave credence to a blue plate dinner. Little did those who came her way know that she saved the tallow for making her own soap. She watched the skies for clouds that might blow in and destroy the crops, the homes. She watched for homeless animals who needed food, and she fed them, petted them, named them and gave them a place to live away from harm, in the safety of her home or the now-abandoned horse barn. She lovingly fed and milked her cows, whose names were those of beloved family members. She shoveled manure of the cows she fed to the plants she grew. Her gray washwater from the iron pots where she had boiled water and washed clothes, before starching and ironing, was applied to the flower beds. The hulls from legumes she grew, the corn she shocked, all went to the large rows of flower beds of azaleas, spirea, daylilies, camellias, roses and all those who had no name or were passed along to her by her mother. The oldest of 14 children, and one of two female children, she knew her way around the kitchen, around the farm, around the neighborhood. She was the first to bring a meal when someone died, the last to leave the grieving family late at night. She was my grandmother, the one who gave my mother and me our love for gardening. Regardless of how we tried, we could never match her humanitarian efforts. It seemed to roll off her like the sweat off her brow when she was preparing meals, for her family, the hired help on the farm. Her afternoons were spent cleaning up the kitchen, picking fruit from the orchards, peeling, seeding, and planning the next days meal. Her evenings were spent reading the newspaper and the letters after the long day was done. Her fig preserves, her peach jelly, pepper jelly, apple and plum jelly lined the walls of an outdoor building with wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling shelving. Blueberries and blackberries adorned biscuits or scones that she made from scratch for breakfast. She learned to make tomato gravy, white gravy and hoecakes from the days in Texas when money was scarcer than love and optimism. But gardening was her passion and she was very good at growing beautiful things, making them green, making them bloom, making them large. Of all the items in her garden, she loved bridal wreath the most. As her body became more bent with arthritis and her ribs began to collapse onto her lungs, her asthma so severe that she could hardly breathe but she managed her way to the kitchen each morning to prepare breakfast for many for more years than I care to think of, long past her physical ability to do that what she loved doing. She looked at catalogs and cut patterns from newspapers for the latest and most fashionable clothes so that her family members might dress with pride and glamour. She saved money to buy silk and lacy lingerie for her female family members, something very few ladies could afford and certainly not in abundance. She washed and ironed handkerchiefs with little lace corners that she kept fresh and piled high for church and funeral attendance. The treks to the fields to gather brush to make brooms always occurred on Sunday afternoon when the kitchen was cleaned, long after the family members and minister had left. Cool afternoons in the fall were spent sitting outside, rifling through the brush to remove anything that might be caught on the wooden floors when she swept, anything that she scrubbed with a mop made of rags which she had saved from her sewing that were not "fit for quilts." Ah, Winter. Winter is when she made the quilts. She hand-basted her quilts and later sewed them together after the batting had been added for substance. If there was time of Saturdays after preparing everyoneÂs clothing for church the following day, she took time to teach us to embroider, crochet, knit and do tatting. There was never a shortage of pillow cases that she had made from bleached cotton fabric onto which we could embroider designs and sew our finished tatting. To this day, I still have a pillow case of crisp white cotton which I trimmed in the only tatting that I had the patience to complete, with a compelling blue bird I embroidered with red roses in its beak. I never completed the leaves so the rose is just that a rose with no foliage, not unlike my garden in the heat of summer. With a row of shoes to polish for Sunday, grandmother always delegated me to do the high-top roman sandals that I liked to wear polished up bright white on Sunday with the dresses and pinafores she made. She taught me about cottonseed meal, guano, how to "drop" potatoes, sow peas, stake running beans, how to tell if a watermelon or canteloupe was ripe by thumping it and how to look for snakes in the briers or watermelon patch. She told me as well how to pick colors for a dress to suit my coloring and hair, how to clean china without eradicating the platinum band, how to clean crystal without pitting it, how to separate the clothes for laundry by color and fabric, how to love people who we find difficult to like, how to accept my children as individuals and to know they may not always walk with the right foot first but I must love and nurture them as best I can for what they become is more me than I realize, how to dress babies so that everyday is Sunday until they are weaned from public appraisal, to not concern myself with cradle cap as it is part of the human development, how to listen to doctors but cull the pep talk from the facts as part of the human experience. She taught me to sit still in church, how to read the Bible with discernment, how to keep silent in the face of adversity but mentally to make a plan to overcome it. She never was able to instill in me the importance of keeping my cards close to the vest as she did but she taught me (along with my grandfather) that women did not have the advantage but could take advantage of the opportunities that arose and how to make the best of the days when there was no opportunity. She asked me not to whine about the shortcomings in life but to understand it is not a perfect world. She taught me that my happiness rests entirely on my shoulders and how I deal with what life has dealt me and that there is no perfect world. She taught me to pray with faith and the expectation that if I asked the Lord's will be done, to be willing to accept that His will might not always be my own. I saw her shed her first tears when we had to remove the bridal wreath she loved so much, but we had to remove it because she could not breathe when her lungs became so tired from the compression of her ribs. Tears ran down her face, perhaps not from the bridal wreath but the memories attached to it. Her mother gave her that "first slip" to root and she had carried it many miles and on many moves and journeys. Now, the bridal wreath was a sign that her journey was coming to an end. ItÂs a beautiful day today, the sky is clear and if she were here, we might be out wringing chickens necks or we might be creating a beautiful doily for the hall table but she is not here and the nurseries are selling bridal wreath and I am going to pick up two and plant them at her grave site. She will not have to worry about the breathing thing any longer, she will not have to worry about it becoming a thing of the past. I am going to give it a place of prominence and she can now have her beautiful bridal wreath with her through eternity without the concern for her health. I hope she knows that I remember the tears that day and am doing what I can to wipe them away. I surely hope she will.

I see that no one has mentioned carrying a purse(probably heavy) with a strap over your shoulder, some switch sides often as they can feel it getting heavy. I always had it on my right shoulder, no more & even after about 5 yrs of not doing it some movements make my shoulder ache. Last Christmas I was cleaning house & lifting things when my left arm went limp, I do mean limp. I couldn't hold a pencil. Hurt no matter how I moved it with my right arm. Ended up sitting for several days with arm on pillow on my lap to make it tolerable. Nights were a nightmare. I had a little pillow smaller than a sofa pillow & put my arm on that at night & used heating pad(before bed), then later Ben Gay, &Tylenol to finally get some sleep. Each time it would get somewhat better & I could get my hair up in ponytail(I'm in my early 70's) & think I was getting better when I would reach up or back & it would start in again & I'd be sitting doing nothing but going through pile of magazines to see if anything I wanted to cut out before I got rid of them. I was really forced to do almost nothing as it would just hang there, sharp pain which I am pretty sure means it's a pinched nerve but if adjusted it on pillow pain would go away. Gradually it has gotten much better but have to be very careful & now I tend to get warning if reaching will start getting pain so I have to stop. Never taken a statin drug, long past menopause so I attribute it to overworked use as was caretaker for both parents & now that they are gone trying to get my house & yard in order. So if you can't sleep grab a pillow to see if it might help by raising arm or laying arm across it, try different pillows from small to larger. Use heating pad for 30 minutes or so at a time. Try different creams or Capsaicin .1% cream but it will burn like crazy & don't get it in your eyes(flush them with lot of water if you do) & be careful what you do & lot of times it will get better on it's own. As for bras fasten the back closure when you have it around in front & then get it around to back & put arms through & up. LOL Hope everyone gets some relief!

Hey all, just a brief friendly reminder for people trapping cats - unless these are obviously on their own and in rough shape.... be sure to check around neighborhood, post highly visible "found" signs... in case these are just free-range resident neighbor cats. This is one aspect of my cat search I found very frustrating... all the cats that turned out to be owned local cats with homes. People mostly cant be bothered to put collars/tags on their cats, which is annoying but still I would hate to put them thru the heartbreak of a lost cat of their own. I would not wish that on my worst enemies! Oh btw mdln - the litter thing is science-based! Cats are far, far, far more scent oriented than are people. Their lives are all about scent marking- rubbing against things, spraying, etc. - and reading scents from other animals off of plants and other things in their environment. I was told that smelly food like mackerel can carry a mile or more - which means its good for setting up feeding station if you're not sure where your cat is. Thats all - carry on! PS - editted to add - why not also try to find the owner even if the cat is in rough shape - a lot of times people give up looking before the cat is found or turned into the shelter - its very sad.

Raven, one of the college students did ask if she could call Uber for me but I thought what if he realized what if he went to the reception following the service, realized I wasn't there and came back looking for me. Hope springs eternal. DH was feeling really bad this morning. He came home from walking the dog and said he was depressed. When I asked why?, he said he couldn't believe it never occurred to him to check the front of the church. If only he back the street he drove down to park, he would have seen me there. I forgot to mention, it was also very windy. My umbrella blew inside out and the ribs got bent...........it's ready for the trash. Fortunately it was only misting not pouring. As Moni said, some day we will just laugh about it, but right now I think I'll milk it just a little bit more. :-)))