She showed me what Motherhood and love looked like

JoAnn was cut from the rugged stock of Appalachian mountain people.

She was wise beyond her formal education. Wise in knowing how to raise a family with little money but lots of love. She knew how to grow and glean from nature.

I met her on my wedding day in 1970. After all, she was to be my new mother-in-law. I had only a couple of mothers to compare her to. Mine was less than loving and kind to me. Then, there was my best friend’s mother, who worked and was nice but always a little stiff and formal.

JoAnn was nothing like what I expected. Years later, I discovered how my fiance hurt her tender heart that day. He took me to the Justice of the Peace’s office to get married while she visited her sister. She told me it hurt that he didn’t let her be a part of our important day.

Love was her motivation for living as she did.

She loved her family and the outdoors. If she could escape into the mountains, she would.

There’s where she gathered mushrooms, bloodroot, and ginseng. In the spring, there was always hiking up the mountains to dig for ramps. The vegetable resembles spring onions, only more garlicky.

You might find her in the garden in her eighties. She would be tending whatever plants needed attention — or hoeing the weeds. She wanted so much to go into the mountains even as she was healing from a broken hip.

First, JoAnn accepted me.

She appeared to care for me and became the mother I needed.

She taught me how to grow strawberries. And make jam, dry apples, pickle pickles, can tomatoes, and save vegetables for the winter. How to make biscuits and gave me advice on whatever I went to her for.

She never forced advice on me. She helped me grow into the mother my children needed and that I wanted to be.

When I met Joann, I was full of anger and bitterness because of my rejection.

It had to be a God thing to soften my heart to accept her love.

Because It would be years before I found this scripture;

Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4:31–32 NKJV)

Early in our marriage, we moved to North Carolina, mostly to get away from my stalking and meddling mother. I was three months shy of my twenty-third birthday at the time.

I was open to learning from Joann and my husband’s grandmother, Bonnie.

We attended a Freewill Baptist Church together. Then, we prepared and cooked Sunday dinner together with the other women of the family. It was a glorious life, and I was becoming content.

There would be camping trips and teaching me to cook outdoors. In those beautiful mountains, creek hiking, and waterfalls to awe over.

Here, I was learning to praise God’s glory and goodness around us.

In November, with snow falling, I was baptized in a mountain stream. I am a cold-natured person, and the thought of stepping into the water had me fearful. Then, when I took that first step, I was warm all the way through and never felt cold.

JoAnn’s sister had us all to her house afterward for lunch. It was glorious because both sides of my husband’s family broke bread together that day. 

Then, the winter snow hit and hit us hard. The baby was sick. Snow kept falling as we drove to the pediatrician’s office. Roads were being closed.

We had not learned to stand on the promises of God and how to pray for healing and restoration.

We got the antibiotic and made it home, only to have the baby’s temperature keep climbing. Outside, the snow continued to fall. It was over ten inches at this point, and all the roads to the hospital were closed.

We had no phone, so I reached a phone booth and called the doctor’s office. We were told to give him ice baths. The roads would not reopen for a day or two, and that is what the medical staff at the hospital would do. Oh, how that hurt me. But we needed to get his fever down.

My in-laws had come over that morning in case we needed them. Of course, we did. I had never been through a snowstorm or seen this much snow.

Fear gripped me, and I could only whisper a prayer.

About midnight, JoAnn said I have an idea. Let us make an onion poultice and put that on his chest. She said, “I have a little groundhog oil that Granny gave me in my purse. Let us rub his feet with that and hold him close to the heater.” We had a kerosene heater in the center of the living room.

After doing what JoAnn suggested, his fever broke. Finally, I could breathe, and we took turns sleeping briefly. There were six of us for one bed and couch, but we survived that terrible night.

This snowstorm came a few weeks after my father’s sudden death.

While in North Georgia for the funeral, my husband looked at the Want Ads in the Atlanta Journal. He saw plenty of opportunities to make good money. Especially now that he had learned how to weld at his current job.

The baby being so sick made him think about moving back to Georgia. So, he came and found a job, and we left our peaceful life and the good people of North Carolina. We left the church.

It took me a couple of years to find my way back to church.

It was there that I discovered the Holy Spirit and was filled. I joined a women’s prayer group and tried to get my husband interested in the things of God again.

About twelve years later, we would divorce.

Many people sever all ties with their former husband’s family, but not me.

All things considered, I needed this family. I visited them in the mountains of North Carolina, and they visited me in Georgia. When I remarried, they also welcomed my new husband into their family.

Every memory with JoAnn and her family is precious.

There should be more people like JoAnn, who was sweet, understanding, patient, and kind.

JoAnn had the fruit of the Spirit, which she used to love all those around her and bring us all joy.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (Galatians 5:22–26 NKJV)

Grief is complicated and can close your mind to all the good you did for that person, or they did for you.

After all, that may be the case for the granddaughter who has cared for JoAnn for many years. Thinking she wasn’t able to do all she should have. Let the “should haves” go. They are from Satan.

It was JoAnn’s time. God had taken a long time to build the mansion for this lovely lady. With her worry lines hidden behind the laugh and smile lines, her face was a road map from good mountain living. It was a map; I would have liked more time to study.

Over the last several years, her physical health deteriorated. So, did her mind slip further and further into places we couldn’t understand; That’s when I did most of my grieving. It’s been hard, but knowing she is with the Lord and her people gives me peace and joy.