What is it about a southern woman and her flower beds? I surely thought I
would never fall under the ridiculous spell I saw the women before me give
way to. I believe it was on a visit to my great grandmother’s home in
Brookhaven, Mississippi that I first took note of the strange behavior that
the women in my family took on when they began to talk of Four
O’clocks and Hydrangeas.

“Your Lantana looks so pretty Grandmother Sandidge”, my mom told her staring starry eyed at a simple yellow bloomed plant, as if it were a sack of laffy taffy. My Maw-Maw and aunt nodded their heads in absolute agreement.

“Awww. Well, I planted that after Leroy passed away, and it has come back
prettier every year,” Grandmother Sandidge humbly replied.

A look of sadness crossed her face for a moment, and then she shared of how she and my great grandpa, who had died a good 30 years previous, had met.

“I had a new pair of glasses and was getting adjusted to them," she said, as she began to blush slightly at the thought of their meeting.
“I was walking down Main Street when I tripped and fell flat on my face!”
“Leroy came out of his Barber shop and helped me up, and then he had the nerve to ask me for a date! "

She let out her loud naselish laugh- and continued, "We went to the movies and we were engaged by the next date!”
Her prideful grin, and the way she cocked her head to the side made it obvious she felt their short courtship was grounds for bragging.

My mom naively asked, “Well how did you know you loved him?”

Grandmother Sandidge looked offended. “Well how did you know when YOU were in love?!”
You never quite new what she would say.

“Your roses are stunning too," my Maw-maw told her, quickly changing the subject.

“Patricia gave me that rose for Mother’s day a few years ago.”
It seemed every plant brought back some kind of vivid memory.

My great grandma Ella Sandidge, (called Eller by all family and friends), I new mainly from holiday gatherings as a small child. There was always many a laugh when she was present. I don’t know if it was her love for wrestling, and her insistence that those matches were the real deal, or simply her quirky sense of style that brought out the giggles in us all.

Her house was a small run down place on Wood Street. It stayed in need of serious repairs. Her yard, on the other hand, seemed a place of vitality and life; At least according to most of the adults who raved of her plants. Her small lawn was the perfect, simple background to many precisely placed bushes, blooms, and vines. Her tiny front porch boasted a garland of gourds she had grown herself. The peeling gray paint of her poor abode made the presence of her flowers all the more grand.

I sat as a child, wondering what could be so dazzling about some bushes,
wishing I had a sack of laffy taffy to entertain me through this most boring
conversation.

It was on another visit to her small sagging house, as a college girl, that her love for flowers began to strike curiosity in me. My Mom had insisted that I bring my new guitar with me to entertain the family with some old hymns.

When we arrived she came out to meet us.
Besides appearing slightly older, she was just as I had remembered her. Her hair
was usually colored anywhere from red to black. Today it was brown. Her ankles had become even more swollen than I remembered them. She was
dressed in her typical 60’s polyester button up shirt. She had a bright belt buckled high up on her waist that looked as though it had come with an orange plaid dress. Fashion wasn’t her forte, to say the least. As a matter of fact, this outfit looked strangely familiar and I am certain I had seen her wear it when I was a little girl.
　
　
　
　
As I looked around, I saw that the neighborhood that once could have been described as ‘cozy’ was becoming run down. I had recently overheard remnants of a conversation about moving Grandmother Sandidge to an assisted living community for her safety. Apparently, she wouldn’t hear any of it. No matter how bad the neighborhood became, she couldn’t say goodbye to the little wooden house or the garden that seemed a place of great solace for her.

That day we sat outside under the carport singing, and Grandmother Sandidge clapped her hands off beat and seemed to be soaking up every minute of our gathering.

She tapped her foot, and looked around at the crowd of family members with the same look on her face as when she was looking at her flowers. Could it be that we were her own little garden…something that brought her joy because she was part of planting and watering it? Something that took her own sweat and blood to produce. Something she was proud of watching grow and change, much like the flowers she had poured herself in to throughout the years.

Not long afterward, I was married. My husband and I did our best to go and visit Grandmother Sandidge regularly. When our first son was born, we brought him to meet her. It wasn’t long after this, that Alzheimer’s Disease began to set in, and she was forced to leave the old house on Wood Street, and her yard full of flowers and memories.

The next few years were busy ones. Our visits became less frequent. It was a beautiful sunny day, when I received the call that Grandmother Sandidge had been hospitalized because she was very ill. We now had two little boys, and another one on the way. My husband and I loaded the boys up and headed to Brookhaven for a visit.

We found her in the Intensive care unit, where someone had thoughtfully pulled back the shades. The afternoon sunlight flooded the hospital room with a cheeriness not common to the ICU. Grandmother Sandidge didn't look like herself. Her skin appeared gray, her hair had not been colored in some time. I hugged her, but could tell she didn’t recognize me.

“Grandmother, how are you?” I couldn’t think of anything to say, but I hoped she would not respond with the obvious. She waited for what seemed like an eternity to answer.

When she finally broke the silence, her voice was shaky and hoarse.
“It is just a beautiful day, isn’t it?" Such peace was on her face. I couldn't help but wonder if she was even aware of her sad physical state.

" I’ve been out walking in the yard today. The weather is just perfect.” She smiled a small, warm smile. It was a smile that seemed to shake away the impersonalness of the cold room, that had only curtains for a door. Her expression was so comforting that it almost made me forget that we weren't sitting under her carport back on Wood Street.

She hadn't answered my question, and I was relieved. Instead she talked of what she wished she had been doing. She had indeed not been out walking in her garden. She had been lying in a hospital bed, uncomfortably hooked up to many tubes and cords.
How kind of her mind to re-sign her to her favorite place. What a sweet release to be able to leave reality and go to the place she loved so very much.


That was one of the last times I got to see Grandmother Sandidge. Only a couple of months later, she passed away. She had requested that I sing at her funeral, and it was no surprise that she wanted me to sing her favorite hymn, “In the Garden”.


What is it about southern women and their flower beds? Is it the flowers themselves that we adore, or is it the memories intertwined and rooted in each plant and returning bud? Each bright colored blossom brings thoughts of joyful family gatherings and home cooked meals.
Grandmother Sandidge’s life tells me that it isn’t just the flowers themselves that we as Southerners are in love with. The beautiful blooms stand as a personal timeline and point of remembrance for each passing year of life, with all of it’s vast changes.