Our son, his wife and little girl will be moving back to Georgia soon and coming to stay with us while they look for a house. I’m excited to spend time with my granddaugter and get to know her better. During her visits here she has loved the outdoors: walking in the field, picking daisy flowers, cracking hickory nuts with rocks, sniffing apple mint, and sitting on the back porch looking at the stars with Grandpa David.

I’m excited to make blueberry biscuits and cookies with her, show her some of the edible plants in our yard, teach her to garden, and take her for walks to sit by the Old Woman or the creek.

While we have five grandchildren, none of them have lived nearby. This is our first that we’ll be able to spend a lot of time with and the thought of it makes me incredibly happy.

Perhaps that’s because I think back to the time I got to spend with my Mamaw Morton and my Granny White. I remember standing by Mamaw watching her drop biscuit dough into boiling chicken broth to make chicken and dumplings. I can still picture picking little green apples from the tree in her front yard and then coming inside and inhaling the amazing aroma as I watched her make fried apple pies.

I developed my love for the piano at her side as she encouraged me to strike the upper octave notes while she pounded out an old gospel hymn. She had a gift for storytelling that mesmerized me for hours. I loved nothing more than to sit with her and listen to her talk.

And then there were those Sunday afternoons we’d cram 40 people into my Granny White’s single-wide trailer and take shifts gathering around her little table to enjoy her incredible feasts.

I can still remember the elation that filled every cell of my body as she’d drive up in her Impala, and we’d run to the door calling, “Granny’s here!” She made the old baby grand in our living room speak a language I never saw written on any sheet music. In an instant she’d transport us back in time to a 1920’s silent motion picture house. Her fun, on-the-go soul poured onto the keys and saturated the air.

Every time I heard her play I felt such a longing, “I wish I could play like that!” Not only was her styling incredible, but what I was really longing for … but didn’t quite have the words to articulate then … was an intense desire to express myself with music like she did.

I used to say Granny had flavor in her fingertips. I had Granny teach me how to make her Cole Slaw. Nobody made Cole slaw like Granny, but I come pretty darn close because she taught me how.

I hope that one day, when I have left this world, that my granddaughter will have fond memories like I have of my grandmothers. I hope she will pass to her daughters how to make Granny White’s Cole slaw, Mamaw Morton’s fried apple pies, or Grammie Marnie’s blueberry biscuits, cookies, pizza and cushaw pie/cushaw bread.

Most of all I hope I can pass to her a legacy of love like my Grandmothers gave me. The food and the music were simply tangible conduits of their love that live on inside me.