Wednesday Ramblings: Big Mama's Rainbow

 

When I worked, I was known for wearing a scarf with any top or a button-down shirt with a brooch at the neck.  I collected several brooches from antique shops, and I loved them all.  But one I had owned for a long time.  It was and is still, very special.

I've often mentioned Big Mama, who was my great grandmother and Granny's Mama.   I've mentioned the river valley view as you're coming nearer my town.  That's such a special view to me and while the new road doesn't have quite the same spectacular perspective it's still pretty impressive when you come to the point in the road where you look out across the river valley over the tops of the trees and clean to the patchwork of fields of a tiny mill community some five or more miles away.   

One of my earlier memories is of coming home with Granny and Big Mama, just me and them.  I must have been only 6 or 7.  I'm not sure just why I was the only one to come but it was a very special time I am sure of that.  I remember that as we topped the hill to the river valley, the inside of the car suddenly exploded into dancing little rainbow-colored lights on the ceiling of the car.  I was absolutely astounded.

"What's this?" I asked.  "Where did all these rainbows come from?"  Big Mama looked up and laughed and said, "It's the sun catching my brooch."

Until that moment I don't think I'd paid any attention to the brooch at all, but once my attention was drawn to it, I couldn't stop looking at it.  It was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen, and that it could make rainbows, too, made it that much more special.  

Big Mama was a good sport.  All the way across the river and swamps as long as the sun could catch that brooch, she'd move it up and down with her fingers so that rainbows danced all over the interior of the car.  Even after we'd gone through town and was headed out to the country area where she lived, I stared and stared at that beautiful brooch.  I asked all sorts of questions about it.   I don't remember any of her answers, but I was just completely in love with that piece of jewelry.  

When we arrived at Big Mama's house, we said our goodbyes.  I told her I loved her, and she told me she'd see me soon.  Then she stopped and reached up to her collar and without saying a word, she took off that brooch and handed it to me.  I still remember that lovely feeling of being handed a treasure.  I couldn't believe that this beautiful, magical piece of jewelry was mine to have.  I remember looking up at Big Mama and I couldn't say a word, not even thank you.  I must have had my astonishment and gratitude written all over my face because she nodded and then said "Goodbye" one more time.

You know I can still see her when I remember that moment, the way she reached up and fumbled with the catch and took it off, the look on her face when I looked back up at her, speechless.  My memory in that moment is as fresh as the day it occurred.  Even then I was astonished that she'd somehow known how I felt even though I'd never have voiced a desire for her to give it to me nor even dreamed that she might.  Even now, I think how in tune she must still have been with how a child might feel being handed something so beautiful.

That's the brooch that I still have to this day.  It's just glass and metal and not at all precious but it's never faded in all these years, and it's never lost its beauty for me in 50 odd years.

I was so blessed to know Big Mama and blessed to have her in my life for many more years.  She lived to be 95.  I was 27 when she died.  In all those years, I visited her often and was given many more treasures.  I never asked for anything, but she always had something she wanted me to have.  I have so many of those objects still, but of them all, none could ever match the wonder of being given that brooch.