Search This Blog

Thursday, March 30, 2017

Grandmommy's Feather Pillows


The soft clean sheets engulfed my smooth 9 year old legs as they entered my Grandmommy’s bed after my nighttime bath with pink Dove soap on a warm summer’s night in July.  My head hit the soft feather pillow and I scooted in as close to Grandmommy as I possibly could.  I felt safe to be near her in her silky night gown.  After we were settled, she began to tell me her stories.  “These are feather pillows she would say.  They were made from the feathers in Momma’s feather bed. I wouldn’t have any other pillow but a feather pillow,” she would say.  “Whoo, there ain’t nothing like them.  When I was a little girl we didn’t have anything but feather pillows and my Momma got them from our geese.”  She would raise her head up and down and move it around as she spoke as if she had some sort of nervous habit – the pillow conforming back and forth to her head. I didn’t really think anything about it because that’s just what Grandmommy did when she was talking.  I just laid there and listened to her stories that she would tell.  It was our nightly ritual. I learned about the camp meetings that she would go to at the church when she was a little girl.  I learned about the time she burned 2 chocolate pies during the WWII sugar ration; and how she dumped them out in the woods to hide the fact that she had wasted the sugar by burning the pies.  I learned about a side of Frog Jump that I couldn’t experience, but one that I could imagine.  I could imagine it because I was familiar with the place myself.
The comfort of Grandmommy’s pillow next to my side, with her head in it is gone.  A transient moment in my life, defines a memory that remains permanently etched in my mind.  Yet, while the memory remains, the trust that was put into my Grandmommy’s presence in my life slowly begins to fade away as Grandmommy, 87, now suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.  She is no longer near me and I learn that the trust that was placed in my Grandmommy’s company will soon be gone.  The pillows in The Weight of Glory, symbolize a moment of rest; a moment of no fear and complete trust.  The pillow; cast in concrete though freezes a moment in time and captures it permanent.  I trust that the pillow will not change.  It is captured just the way it is.  To last forever.
Cast Concrete Pillows from the Installation, The Weight of Glory, 2017