LIFE LESSON

My first husband and also my second husband and i were in a small family business together. A little clothing store called Bums Factory Outlet here in Columbia. We had it for almost 30 years.

I had some crazy wonderful employees at that store . From the college kids, earning their 200 hours in retail business, to my wonderful seamstresses who make all the clothes fit to wear.

All of them characters..some excellent and some really out there...like the guy from Mt. Pleasant who dressed in a ladies bathing suit and posed in the window of the store one night to the beautiful young lady who had an abortion one week end and still showed up for work on Monday. To the dedicated ladies in the back, me almost being the oldest, they all became family, an extended family that I would have done anything for and they would have me also. On birthdays and special days, we had cakes, ice cream, KFC dinners and presents for all. At Thanksgiving we gave out Turkeys and Christmas hams and bonus and gifts. Because some of them had a hard life. One friend was a single mom who had raised her daughter all by herself and worked 2 jobs to make ends meet. Another had 10 children and worked beside her husband in a ditch digging business until he died and she still stayed up nights and sewed clothes for her kids to wear to school so they would have something new. And she never missed a day of work. She retired from the store and she had seen the deaths of 3 of her grown children. We laughed, fussed and cried together and each Mothers Day they all got a special flower and little gift. I did this, not because I had to, not because anyone expected it BUT because i wanted to, I wanted to for the simple reason that everyone , at some time in their life, no matter how young or how old just needs, REALLY NEEDS, to feel special. And everyone is in their own unique way, is special.

For Southern women and families, that is a way of life you have grown up with. Your friends and family are there to make you feel special. You are all up in everyones life and happenings and things bad and good. You go in a out of each others houses and no one cares. If there is a bed to be changed, clothes to be washed, food to be cooked or a kid to be looked after , watched or fussed at, you just do it. And you do it because you want to, not because you have to but you really and truly don't mind doing it and it gives you a good feeling to do it. So you young people out there who have grandparents or parents who come to you and ask to help, let them. it makes them feel good and makes them feel needed and most of all makes them feel special but mainly its because they love you. And someday, sooner or later, they will have to call on you to do for them. So don't fuss when they wash a pot, or take out the garbage, just be thankful they are around for now and healthy enough to do it.

Lord, I wish the days of leaving doors open, and keys under the mat were still here. When you could walk in your house and see a basket of vegetables and know who brought it. One time, when I lived in the country, someone came and left a great pot of wonderful catfish stew on my stove, all warm and ready to eat. Just know that to me, you all are special.