day nineteen: country

Suzy's Grammy is "country as sin," as Suzy likes to say (although I don't know why sin would be associated with rural areas). And like most country folk, she's a different breed. Here's a little excerpt from Suzy's blog about the first time I met her Grammy:

     When I first took Greg to meet my Grammy, I walked into my grandparent’s home with Greg following behind me.  Grammy was on the back porch so I bee-lined to open the door for her to meet my sweet, new man.  Before I could tell her that I brought someone for her to meet, she blessed me with the funniest moment of my life.  Not noticing Greg, she started into“Hey Suzy….did you hear about my friend?  She has shingles all the way down her butt crack and straight up into her a-gina.”Yes, you read that right.  She calls a vagina an “A-gina”She also calls a penis a “Wobjanger,” but that’s a whole other story.     I awkwardly introduced Greg to her after he turned a shade of red saved only for these kind of moments.  I thought she would play it off, but oh no.  She then launched into“Hey Greg, glad you’re here…. Did you hear about my friend??”
She is one-of-a-kind.

Grammy with her great-grandson

As a child, Grammy only had shoes in the winter, and even those were made of canvas sewn together. The house she lived in growing up didn't have a true floor, just boards with gaps so wide that if you dropped a pencil, coin, etc., it was gone.

Grammy also volunteered for years at the North Greenville Food Crisis Ministry, where we donated food today. Suzy would go up there and help out when she wasn't in school or teaching, and then they'd always get hot dogs at the restaurant next door.

But Grammy has retired from volunteering and the restaurant has closed.

What hasn't changed, however, are the needs of the people who come to the NGFCM for assistance. Most of them have a deeply ingrained work ethic and hold blue-collar or labor intensive jobs, but can't make enough to meet their basic needs (even working for minimum wage...imagine that!). They've been hit harder than most in a bad economy. They are country folk, just like Grammy.

But she hasn't forgotten her roots. Having grown up in poverty, she grew to serve those still firmly in it's grip. She's modeled that kind of service for her granddaughter and great-grandson, and even for her grandson-in-law. Grammy has known God's blessings in her life - in her need and in her giving - even if she is "country as sin."

A sign on the door of the ministry
"May all who enter our doors know God's blessing, either in receiving during their time of need or give to those in crisis."