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I have had red roes
yellow, pink and white
breathing fragrant
in the morning light
Drop of dew its petals
touched
fragrance of the night.
A few red and glowing
like no other,
but only one or two or three
Like soft blown mornings.
Like a meteor in the moony lite
so touched my life
like only one or two or more-
A few I loved who loved me too
like the red rose.
~Annie McLeod Mauney
Over Father’s Day weekend, Barton and I drove to Pensacola, FL for my grandmother’s memorial service. While we weren’t expecting to travel after our trips to London and Scotland, I am so glad that we could be there for my father and the family during this time, especially since it was Father’s Day weekend.
When we entered my aunt and uncle’s house, my dad opened and was reading from a small journal. I knew it was something that Nannie (Annie Wilds McLeod Mauney) had written in. He explained that it was her journal, after my grandfather Poppa had died in 1997. As I sifted through the pages of journal entries and writings on small white and green index cards paper clipped to the pages, I was entranced in her thoughts in the time after Poppa died. She wrote about the silence in the mornings, the love between them, flowers, birds, her faith in God, prayers, poems and quotes.
Later that evening, Barton sat next to my cousin Katy, while she read my grandmother’s diary; Katy held Barton’s hand as she couldn’t hold back the tears. When returned from taking pictures of an amazing sunset over the sea, we hugged and wiped our tears away. Katy told me, "You know you get your writing gift from her." I know that it's true; when I was little we would read poetry paint with pastel watercolors.
Dad let me borrow her diary, with the request to transcribe it for the family. I now have the privilege of scanning and transcribing her journal into a manuscript. As I squint to read her handwriting, I am amazed at the elegancy of her words.
My own diary is choppy, messy, writing that is completely illegible. While her journal is filled with words that are soft and gentle of the heartache of losing her first love.
A few years after my grandfather’s death, Nannie received a call out of the blue from an elementary school love. He had lost his first wife to Alzheimer’s. They found comfort in each other, a spark of life and love. In August of 2004, three months before Barton and I married, Annie and Marshall were married in the backyard of my father’s house. My father’s house was the meeting for their visits as she was living in Pensacola and he was living in Virginia- Atlanta the perfect half-way point. I saw a vibrancy; she was just about as excited as I was about getting married again. In fact, at our own wedding, everyone I talked with later mentioned how beautiful it was to see them so in love- at 83! That is my most favorite memory of my grandmother, the light in her eyes in her silvery light blue dress at our wedding.
I know that as I go through Nannie’s journal that I will begin to know her in a new way; there is a quiet truth in the sadness and love she felt for Poppa. A love that is so beautiful as they are now rejoined in God.
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