Most everyone who has read my book, Chasing Dragons: Vengeance, has said they love the two old ladies. In that case, I have to say with much confidence, you would love my Ma and Pa Mallory. Millie and Clara are based on my grandparents and I lovingly wrote the two sisters with them in mind. I think Pa would get a kick.
When I was younger than four, my mother met a wonderful man who took my sister and myself in as his own. When I was four, they married. His parents gathered us and placed us with the others of the family and not one person could tell them we didn't belong. Those who knew them called them by name, Buster and Trisie Mallory. I called them Ma and Pa. They didn't have much money and spent their lives working hard, not forgetting to laugh along the way. When they lived in Iowa, their twin son and daughter died of pneumonia at the age of nine months. Ma's dad traveled from Missouri to Iowa and brought them back to Missouri for burial. With no money to return with them, they were unable to see them laid to rest. They eventually returned to Missouri and stayed till their dying day.
A large painting of Pa's childhood home hung on the wall, in a way contradicting the relationship between his parents and himself. He left home as a young teen, and to my understanding, he never spoke to his father again. I believe he did maintain a relationship with his mother. Ma was the opposite. Her father, Grandpa Calhoun, was a stand up man, marrying her mother and giving her son a name in a time when a woman with a child born out of wedlock was an outcast. I once asked Ma where her name came from. She said that Grandpa Calhoun got it from the Farmer's Almanac. He smoked a pipe, but never in the house because she didn't like it. When you look at the old black and white pictures, you see their love for each other, and when it came at their full time, Grandma Calhoun was the first to go, with Grandpa following three weeks later.
Ma and Pa were loved by all and in turn, they made us laugh. On Sunday's we would go to their house, sometimes skipping church, and most others, afterward. Ma always fixed dinner, my favorite being her homemade rolls. One Sunday, the women were in the kitchen (of course) washing dishes, and the men were in the living room watching football. Howard Cosell, a sports journalist, was commentating on TV when Pa said, "Look how long his nose is." Ma said, without missing a beat, "I wouldn't be talking, yours is splattered all over your face." Pa's nose was flat and wide, due to it being broken when he was young I'm guessing.
Other wise words of Pa: "I went to college. I walked in the front door and turned around and walked out." "I'm ready to meet Jesus, I'm just not ready to catch the bus."
Wise words of Ma: "Come back and see your fat ol Ma."
Ma would tell Pa and I to quit behaving like sniveling little girls when we would pretend cry when I left those Sunday evenings. They dressed like each other one Halloween party. I know of no one who could beat him at checkers. Ma liked to quilt and she liked to cook and make sweet, sweet tea. Some Sunday's we walked in the door and she would show us the different quilts she had finished. Laying on top of another, she would pull the top layer neatly back to reveal the next creation as we oohed and awed over each one, and they were worthy of the oohs and awes. And they both liked to play cards. I'm told that Pa is a good shot, that he could light a match. No joke. My dad will attest. He lost half his index finger to a saw blade, but told us kids a booger ate it. My nephew shot him with a toy gun, his teeth fell out and Adam cried and ran away until he realized it was a joke. Couldn't stop the boy after that. Ma always wore a dress that stopped at her knees with roll-up pantyhose and comfortable ugly loafers. I never saw Pa in anything other than overalls, unless he was in church, a wedding, or my graduation. And he isn't allergic to poison ivy and he collected hammers. ??? I don't know. I remember after he died in 1989, we went to his shed and rows and rows of hammers hung on the wall. Ma didn't die until 2002. The last few years of her life, every time I visited, tears would collect in her old eyes and she would say, "I don't understand why God won't take me home." And in the end, a tumor grew in her brain, leaving her speechless, but she could still wag that finger at you with a gleam in her eye.
When it was finally her time to go, I didn't cry. I did wipe a few teardrops away with my hand, but I understood she was where she wanted to be. She was home, with Pa, and God. I miss them. So I hope you see them when you read of Millie and Clara, because I put a little of them, inside.
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