My grandmother, Evelyn Raynor, was a strong and resilient woman. You might even say that she was a tough woman.
She had to be.
She was the mother of 8 children and the wife of a stern, alcoholic husband. The few memories I have of my grandfather, who preceded her in death, include him eating cold biscuits between toothless gums, and snapping at his grandchildren for being too loud. He had a chair in the den that seemed like a throne to me, to which none of us was allowed to approach. I was terrified of him.
The Raynor family lived in a very rural part of eastern North Carolina. Even today, if you search for the town where my grandmother lived on google earth, you can easily count the number of houses that show up. The majority of the landscape consists of sprawling trees and rural farm plots. As you might guess, my grandparents lived off the land. Their livelihood consisted of growing tobacco and raising hogs, certainly not the most auspicious of careers by today’s standards. Even with the prospect of a seemingly lucrative tobacco industry during the mid 1900s, my grandparents were poor.
Small would be a euphemism for the home where my Grandmother Raynor raised her children and hosted our yearly family reunions. I can only remember 4 tiny bedrooms in her house. There was one bathroom, one undersized den, no central air, and the hand crank water pump in the front yard was still very functional during my childhood years. The rudimentary well near the grand magnolia tree in the backyard was boarded up with a makeshift plywood covering, and we were given strict warnings to never go near it. Looking back, I believe that if one of us had fallen into that well, it would have been tragic.
There are a lot of things I remember about my grandma. I was 20 when she died in 1987, and our yearly visits became less frequent as I entered high school so most of my memories are recalled through the eyes and mind of a school girl. One vivid memory I have of Grandma Raynor was her regular indulgence in dipping snuff. Though certainly not a very ladylike trait, it made sense for the wife of a tobacco farmer. Today this practice is better known as chewing tobacco, and you will rarely see a woman doing it. But my grandmother was not an ordinary woman.
When she was not outside picking vegetables from her garden, my grandmother was in the kitchen. Her biscuits were always made from scratch, but her cakes emerged from a Betty Crocker box. For us kids, however, the teaspoon of lemon extract and the real butter that she added to the mix made us feel like we were eating scrumptious unfrosted cakes from a local bakery.
I remember my Grandma Raynor’s hair. She regularly wore her hair in a neat, taut bun. I always thought she didn’t have very much hair. One evening when we stayed overnight, however, I watched her unpin her graying hair. I never would have guessed that her long hair reached to the middle part of her back until I observed her brushing it that night.
Grandma Raynor had a feather bed. A real feather bed. The feather mattress rose from the box springs like a bumpy white monolith that seemed to be 2 feet tall to my young eyes. Us children were not allowed in her room. I suppose it was her only haven amidst the tight quarters and chaotic noise of the house. On one rare occasion, we were allowed into the room, and I gazed at the feather bed in wonder, turned myself around, and fell backwards into the feathers, enveloped by the dreamy, luscious softness.
Driving a car was one experience my grandma never had. Though encouraged to pursue her driver’s license after my grandfather’s death, she never had the courage to follow through. Instead, she made due by using the farm tractor to run her short errands to the grocery store.
My grandmother was an uncomplicated woman. She was only able to complete a 9th grade education, and she may not be considered strikingly beautiful in the eyes of the world. Her teeth were stained from years of tobacco use, and I doubt she ever had any of today’s common beauty treatments. Her clothes were functional and plain. She taught her children a simple faith, and took them to the local Primitive Baptist Church, a compact, unadorned wooden structure, with long wooden pews lining the interior. She loved both her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. And we all knew it.
Perhaps one thing I most vividly remember about my grandma were her hands.
Grandma Raynor’s hands were not the soft and supple hands that are proliferated in magazine ads. I’m quite sure she never had a manicure, as her nails were always cut close to her fingers to minimize the amount of gray sandy soil underneath. You see, my grandmother worked the ground, digging potatoes and picking beans. She grew her food, and then she either froze or canned the surplus in preparation for the long winter months and feeding of 8 children.
Her hands were rough, weathered, wrinkled, and calloused. They were nicked by the knives she used to peel and cut vegetables. I would also periodically notice dark staining on her fingers. Her fingerprint lines were often outlined in gray, what I thought were the remnants of dirt that just could not be washed off.
But my grandma’s hands contained something magical. We kids believed that Grandma Raynor’s hands had a remarkable quality that made any food she prepared taste especially marvelous to our young palates. One of the dishes I loved to eat at grandma’s house were her butter beans. For those of you who aren’t familiar with butter beans, they are a small green version of the lima bean. They were best plucked from the vine well before their fat, round shapes bulged in the pod. They were at their peak for us when they were small, like early green peas. The sweet, tender beans were hand shelled by all of us, like little pearls in oysters. The more difficult they were to get out, the sweeter they would taste later on. Try as she might, my mom could not replicate the flavor of grandma’s butter beans. It had to be grandma’s hands, we reasoned. Just her touch caused everything to taste better. It wasn’t until my grandmother’s death that my mom was able to get the seasoning just right.
Though not an overly affectionate person, my grandma did express her love to us. When she hugged me, she enveloped me completely. I can recall when her hands pressed around me in a full body embrace, communicating her deep and abiding love.
Looking at the physical appearance of my grandma’s hands would tell much about the values she had for her family. Her hands expressed these values in service, in hard work, and in love.
As I grew up and started my own family, I began to notice my own hands. Instead of long slender fingers, mine were short. They were not the pretty hands of a model that I wished for, wrinkle-free and smooth. The 10 years of diaper changing and hand washing began to take a toll on my hands, and the lines grew deeper in my sagging skin. One day, I noticed the gray outlines of my own fingerprints on my index finger and thumb, and diligently worked to get my hands clean. I recognized the familiar look on my hands that I had observed in my grandmother.
Despite my efforts with cleaners, lotions, and a few spa treatments, my hands still do not look like I dreamed. But I have come to appreciate what I see when I look at my hands. I have come to understand that my hands were passed down to me my from my grandmother, a hardworking faithful woman. It is a simple reminder of my heritage, and an inherited gene from this woman I called my grandmother.
Sometimes we can look at our lineage, and the negative aspects of where we came from can overshadow the positive ones. A physical attribute such as height or weight, facial features or hair can feel like less than a blessing to us. I would like to redeem even those things that seem less than positive and have God show them to me in a new light, just like He did with my grandma’s hands. Now when I look at my own hands, I see not only the fruit of my labors but the fruit of my heritage. I celebrate the less than taut skin, and the approaching wrinkles. I even celebrate the dark lines that appear from time to time, seeing them as a pause to remember and give thanks for my grandmother.
When you look at the lives of the adult children my grandma raised, their success speaks highly of her diligence and faithfulness. My father went to college and later joined the Air Force. As a teenage boy, he took the role of father to many of his siblings when his own father did not fulfill his role. All of the Raynor boys served their country in a branch of the military, and one went on to become a minister. Among the 4 sisters, they had careers in fields such as medicine, education, and banking.
Proverbs 31 mentions the hands of a virtuous woman 4 times, with images of charity, labor, generosity, and service. In almost all cases, the hands of this woman speak of the regular, monotonous work that is required to provide for one’s home and family. In it’s essence, the woman’s hand depicts faithfulness at home. I believe my grandmother used her hands for these things. I believe she worked to make a better life for her children and grandchildren. I am a product of that labor. As I look around my own beautiful home, celebrate my Godly husband and children, and enjoy many amenities that my grandmother never had, I am thankful.
The gray lines on my hands fade and reoccur, each time as a random reminder that my hands represent my heart, my service, and my heritage. I pray that when I look at my hands, my response will continue to be gratitude.
Author’s Note: My dad turned 77 this week as I wrote this post, outliving both his mother, father, and all his siblings. He has one remaining sister, my Aunt Vera. I believe that his choices to follow God, live righteously, and break the generational grip of alcoholism and tobacco addiction have allowed him to live a long life. His choices have also made a way for me to continue the generational progress. I dedicate this post to him and to my grandmother’s memory.