Mama Mary’s Legacy
Our small community, and the world, lost a great woman this week..my Mama Mary. To say that this was a great loss would be well understated as this loss was one of the worst I have experienced in my 27 and a half years.
My Mama Mary has been in my life as long as I can remember. My dad, Wayne, married her when I was young and my sister Lara and I were instantly inseparable.
All of the memories I have of Mary are great. There are none that I recall that I would need to repress.
One of my earliest memories of Mary was how special she always made me feel. I was accepted as her daughter. She never introduced me to friends as “Wayne’s oldest,” it was always “my oldest, Hannah..”
Those of you with blended families and “step this” and uncommon family tree branches know how hectic titles can be.
In addition to acceptance into her family, she was the most artistic woman that I have ever known. She used anything she could find to amuse us growing up to keep us occupied so that boredom didn’t set in.
She was so good that I believe that in first or second grade, I had to make a diorama for school. I was with my daddy and Mary that weekend and she took me out into the yard and we collected grass and bark and sticks and other useful things that would make my cut up shoebox look good.
Mama Mary taught me to use the glue gun, supervised, and I had the best looking diorama ever. I know this because my grade was so bad, the teacher didn’t believe that I’d done it. Mama Mary was furious and appalled that her “daughter” was discredited.
There was another time when we lived in the house on the corner of Perimeter Road and Hwy. 11.
Lara and I loved that house because my best friend, Sean, lived next door. Sean’s mama, Roxie kept me when we were in preschool and was close to our family. Her husband, Stephen was also close to us…and Mary’s nickname for Lara early on was Steven…she was a bit of a tomboy, and it fit her all too well.
In that house I was a Minorette. This is a small version of a Majorette, which twirls a baton typically in a band. One day I was outside “practicing,” and my daddy wouldn’t pay me any attention…It was Mary who told him to watch my routine to “Chattahoochee,” by Alan Jackson, and solely her who inspired me to become a majorette, or anything else I wanted in high school.
I don’t remember not having much money growing up with either parent. As I get older I am continuously told how little Daddy and Mama Mary had. You would have never known it. She could stretch a dollar into fractions of a penny.
She let us paint with acrylic paints, cut duck and other shapes out of wood that we could paint and take home, she always ordered us pizza on the weekends…I never thought we didn’t have money.
I specifically remember our trips to her parents, Me Maw and Granddaddys, in Crystal River, Fla. Lara and I would ride three wheeled bikes to a neighbors to swim, and we even got to see the manatees in Homassassa Springs.
Once Mama Mary and my dad put Lara and I in the car and we drove and drove and drove. They didn’t tell us where we were going. At a rest stop, Lara and I were complaining and asked could we just turn around and go home. It was then that Mama Mary got in the car and handed us a brochure that had Disney on the front and once we figured out that was where we were headed, we were elated.
I remember little about the trip, except the family in the tea cups, and that it rained, but it must have been an awesome trip.
I could go on and on about these stories, and those who care, but there is simply not enough room in this paper.
One of the biggest accreditations to my Mama Mary is my love for the service industry. She got me involved in food service when I was 14, and I still love it today. She took me into the Log Cabin and I began as a dishwasher, and progressed quickly into a server.
She said that she knew that I would be good for the business, and the profit has been a blessing to me.
I am a bartender at night, and she is the story that I like to tell when guests give me compliments, or ask how or why I still do this work with a degree under my belt.
I am a lucky woman. I had the blessing of a wonderful step mother, and ever better step siblings.
Because of Mary, I got not only her, but I got Amy…the older, beautiful sister that I’d always wanted. She was there early on and boy did I, and do I, look up to her. She was the “cool” one. She had the right boyfriends, the right clothes, and the right attitude. She taught me to drive a stick shift in a Conyers parking lot, she allowed me to be the oldest when I visited her at Salem Glen, and is so good to me. She is the one who made me want a “peach” wedding for so long…and the one who’s attitude I need to learn to adopt in certain situations.
I also got Joey, a brother, out of Mary too. Joey, a big brother. We had an instant connection, not that of a real sister, but we got along most of the time. He lived with us for a while, and was bad and awesome all at once. He used his artistic side and drew me things. He was also the best model car builder and painter I have ever seen, and he even let me help on one or two…Joey lived in Maryland and gave me a perspective on skateboarding through the Atlanta Airport. He wore leather jackets, and listened to Guns N Roses. He was a bad boy rebel that I love.
Now, not least, but last, because of Mary I got Lara. My ultimate best friend the one I love so so so much..Lara. Lara is my sister; there has never been any question about that even from day 1. Lara and I agree on just about everything from naming country music singers, to our likes and dislikes…we do disagree on ONE thing and that is that she has failed to recognize GEORGIA or FLORIDA STATE as the best football teams….Lara and I have moments that only sisters so close in age can have. She and I share an unique bond that can never be duplicated. She and I can not talk for weeks and then out of the blue pick up right where we left off, as if no time has passed.
Lara was my rock, like when we got stuck in the mud leaving the river, and I hope that I was hers…thank you Mary for Lara…she means the world to me.
And lastly, I just want to say that I am a better woman because of my Mama Mary. She taught me the beauty of the little things in life, and so see the positive in any situation. Thank you Mama Mary for me. For making me a better person, a more artistic person, and for making my life a pleasure….