My Mom

Mellonee walked across the living room at the cabin and I did a double take because she walks just like my mom. She always says I look just like Grandmama but I have never seen it so much as that day. I think my mom, Mary Aurelia Kinard, had a pretty hard life as I look back on it. She was born in 1925, shortly before the great depression. Her father was a geologist who did alot of work dealing with oil wells.Her parents divorced early in her life which always causes loyalty issues. She was a very sickly child. She had Diptheria which nearly took her life, Rheumatic fever which weakened a heart valve, Trench Mouth which cost her her teeth at a very early age. Her mother was a realtor and she told me once that it was either feast or famine at their house. I have a set of keys that I got from my Grandma Mary Alice Wox Kinard that fit in the various houses that she worked on. Mary grew up in a time of great financial difficulty and her frugal nature lasted most of her life. When I cleaned out her house after her death I found a little box marked "junque" and it was but even that she couldn't bear to throw away in case she might need it in the future. I remember her doing bills and always tucking a couple of bills into envelopes for emergencies. She made and made over many prom dresses for me. Some she bought at thrift stores and totally created something new and beautiful from very little. Once she took an orange brocade that she had purchased to make my dad Pajamas and made me a beautiful dress for a church function. I do think her life was hard and some of that hardness rubbed off on her. She was married to an unfaithful alcholic but always taught me to respect my father because he was my father. Sometimes she was hard on me but I am so grateful she taught me so many things that I use all the time. When I look at my oldest daughter I sometimes think this is who my mother would be if she had had the Gospel of Jesus Christ in her life. And when I see my mother next she will.