It’s been over sixteen years since my grandmother Hattie Bandy died on Mother’s Day. To mark that time, I wanted to run this column again. I loved her so, and still miss her every single day. This one’s for you Hattie Lou.
“Me and Miss Hattie went riding last week. She likes to call it “going to worlds unknown.” My grandmother had been feeling a little poorly of late, so we didn’t travel very far. We rode long enough to get a little sunshine on our faces, and to take in Carroll County’s spring show. The azaleas are almost done. The irises are long gone. But the roses are blooming now, you know. Truelove red and sweet-angel pink.
I stopped and picked her a roadside beauty, a little wild rose from a big, thorny bush. Miss Hattie held it up, gently brushing it against her nose. Then she quoted one of her favorites from her elementary school primer, “This old world we’re living in is mighty hard to beat, we get a thorn with every rose, but isn’t that rose sweet?”
We rode round and round, watching town pass by, eating a deluxe large order of fries. We drove as long as I dared, fearing she was too tired. But she wasn’t finished. As we pulled into her driveway, she put her hand lightly on my arm and said, “Let’s go to the cemetery.”
“What cemetery?” I asked. “Sumach.” She said with a mischievous grin.
If you look at a Carroll County map, you won’t find Sumach Cemetery. That’s because it’s in Murray County. Many years ago, before our family migrated to this area, before Mama went to college at West Georgia, they all lived in North Georgia. Hattie grew up there, the only girl out of eight boys. She lost her daddy there, when she was 8 years old, as well as two baby brothers. Eventually, as her people passed on, her older brothers and finally her mother all went to rest in Sumach Cemetery.
It sits high on a hill, high above the rest of the land. Standing at the top, you can peer out across the emerald fields and see all the way to Tennessee. The land below is rich. The earth is dark, washed every spring by the restless river running along its side. In the morning, as the sun is blooming over the far away trees, you can almost imagine “Judgment Day” when all the faithful buried there will rise to heaven and feast at the Master’s table. It’s the most beautiful place in Murray County, Georgia.
Miss Hattie was forever wanting to go and visit Sumach. It had been a pilgrimage spot of ours for many years. When we were kids, mama would load the family up into the junebug green station wagon and head for the mountains, picnic in tow. We’d spend the afternoon there studying the slick marble head stones of people who had passed before us. We wondered what they were like. Wondered if we looked like them. And tried to do the hard arithmetic of figuring out their ages. Lastly, we’d look for Hattie’s favorite spot.
John William and Cora Malinda Holcomb. They were her parents. The headstones were large and always easy to find. But the one next to John’s always puzzled us. It was small. Simple and elegant in gray-veined marble. It said, “Harriet Louise Bandy” and quoted her date of birth.
But it didn’t make sense. There she was, right beside us, putting flowers on her parents’ grave. She explained to us that she “put it there herself.” Said that she would rest there some day, by her daddy and mama and the rest of her large family.
We took Miss Hattie there this morning. Took her to Sumach, drove her to the most beautiful place in Murray County. We stood together and watched the sun rising slowly, burning the cool morning haze off the backs of the greenest of fields.
The roses were blooming there too, bursting in wild profusion from the fences along the road, and the honeysuckle filled the air with thick, rich fragrance. We stopped the car in the shade of a big-branched oak and carried Miss Hattie gently to her favorite spot. Several of us brought flowers. You know how she loves flowers. And we stood together and spoke in quiet voices of her strength and beauty; each of us touched by her in some deep-hearted way. Lastly, we sang one of her favorite songs- the one her mother sang to her long ago on the front porch of their simple house.
“I’m going there, to meet my mother,
She said she’d meet me when I come.
I’m just a-going over Jordan,
I’m just a-going over home.”
Miss Hattie had decided to stay at Sumach this time. She wanted to see her people again. Wanted to stay and rest beside her handsome daddy. Wanted to cast her burden down. But the rest of us had to go back to Carroll County. We couldn’t stay on that brilliant hillside, washed in the clean light of morning.
We wept as we walked together, down that gentle, sloping hill. We wept tears of love and loss. And I’m weeping still. But it‘s just because I’ll miss her. I know she’s off to “worlds unknown,” and someday, I will meet her there.