Grandma B. (Reposted)

[Note: This was originally posted as a comment in reply to Sandy K's item RESURRECTION SUNDAY: Reverend Stanton.  I removed it afterwards because it seemed a bit unwieldy as a comment.  Several other commenters asked to read what I wrote, so I'm reposting it here as a standalone item.]

Grandma B.

When my mother was a young child (she was born a few years into the depression... well, the other depression, I guess...) her mother/my grandmother, was newly divorced/abandoned by my grandfather (a raging alcoholic in every sense.)  Grandma B., as I'll call her, had eight kids and a farm that barely offered a subsistence level harvest during those drought-ridden years.  My mother still talks about the times they had nothing to eat but a horrible "bread" made from whatever grain my grandmother could manage to scounge up.  At least, it was horrible by our standards today.  In those times it was greatly appreciated for whatever minimal existence-sustaining qualities it offered.

After a few more lean years, my grandmother lost the farm to the bank.  She moved the children to a small house in a nearby town.  It was on the "wrong" side of the tracks, literally just off of the tracks, but it was a warm and dry.  The railroad was the only mode of transport for many in those times, and most riders were "non-paying" passengers who rode in freight cars.  The tracks were literally feet from the property that their house was on, and most of the other houses in the area were well down the road.  Since the trains always stopped at the first major road about quarter mile past their home, the boxcars backed up past Grandma B.'s property.  As a result, they were usually the first stop for the "hobos" that traveled the rails looking for work, or maybe just looking for a change.

My grandmother had too little as it was, but she also knew the desperation and hopelessness that accompanies hunger and poverty.  When these vagrants and bums came knocking on her door, with their vacant stares and lost souls, anyone might have forgiven her for turning them away.  After all, as a single woman with young children, she didn't have much in the way of defense if someone decided to rob them, or worse.  It was also well known in those days that word of a free meal traveled fast among such men, often confirmed through markings left on the roadside or sidewalks. 

She could have, and perhaps should have turned them away.  Instead, she offered them a meal on the porch, and an odd-job if they were willing.  In doing so, she provided them sustenance for their physical as well as their spiritual being.  She wasn't a woman to be taken lightly, and she was not easily deceived by those who were more inclined to try working a "con" than a plow.  To me, she was never the typical "kindly old grandma" that is so often portrayed in the media.  She was actually sort of  reserved, even hardened (not surprising given the hard life she endured.)  But I always knew that she loved me, right up until she died in her 100th year.

To this day I respect her toughness, and I admire her kindness.  The challenge is knowing when to apply the one versus the other.  It seems to me that many who have lived a life of incredible privilege (especially in comparison with hers) haven't learned this basic lesson.  Instead, their mantra seems to be "toughness toward those in need, kindness toward those with much"... go figure.