Granny’s Swing
According to Granny, Grandpa Aaron built the swing for Granny when they was still courtin'. Granny said one Sunday after supper they'd been sittin' on the steps holdin' hands, and she was talking out loud, dreamin' 'bout when they'd get married and have they own house with a lemonade porch and a swing to set in of a night, watching the stars and the fireflies, swaying to and fro and wouldn't that be somethin', Aaron?
Grandpa was the doin' sort. He never just talked about things. Granny said he was a doer, not a dreamer. So, by the time they married, Grandpa had built that house Granny dreamed about with the lemonade porch and the swing built for two.
Over the years Mama and her brothers and sisters did a lot of swinging on that porch, with and without Granny. Grandpa had to fix it more times than he could count. Once was 'cause Uncle Leroy thought he would push Auntie Mae so high she'd fly to the moon (and far away from Petersburg. They never got along. Still don't and they old as sin now.) All he did, though, was bust the swing and Auntie Mae's lip. And get a whuppin' they still laugh about. He wasn't laughin' then, o' course. 'Specially since Auntie Mae didn't go nowhere and was still her bossy, nasty self...as Uncle Leroy tells it.
When I was a little'un, I used to love to sit in the swing with Granny. I would lay with my head on her lap, and she'd set the swing to rocking with her foot. A slow swayin', while she'd hum some hymn from church and smooth my hair or stroke my arm softly, sometimes whispering well lookie there baby girl, the fireflies are out tonight. Go run and catch one for Granny. Or, don't the sky look like God scattered diamonds just so we could love the night sky as much as the day?
Granny died last summer. After the funeral, we had people back to the house like you do. The house Grandpa Aaron had built for Granny more than 60 years ago. I didn't cry when she passed. I was holding her hand when God called her home. I didn't cry at the service. Being strong for Mama, maybe. But that evening, after everyone had paid their respects and gone on home, I sat on the porch swing, pushing it gently, watching the fireflies and the stars as I wept.