GRANDMOTHER ROBERTS

GRANDMOTHER ROBERTS

My grandmother, Luba King Roberts, was one of my best friends when I was a child. It seems odd to call a grandmother a “best friend” but she was—to me in my little child’s view of the world. Grandmother would actually talk to me and listen to me. She didn’t try to boss me around and make me “behave.” She’d had so many children of her own that her view of child-rearing was pretty much “live and let live”, which was just fine with me.

Because we lived not far—just a few blocks—from Grandmother and Pa, I saw her a lot. My parents would drive me to her house to visit, or, when I was very small, my Pa would come to fetch me on his bicycle and ride me to their house in his bicycle basket. When I got older and needed to find things to do during the long summer vacations in hot South Florida, I would ride to Grandmother’s house on my bike, and we would sit on her front porch in ancient rusty metal porch chairs and “visit.” I don’t remember anything about what I said to her, but I remember so well many of the stories she told me—mostly about my father and his brothers and sisters as they were growing up, but also about her own life as a young girl in frontier Florida and as a young mother. I must have heard some of these stories multiple times, because I have them catalogued in my head with titles such as “Braiding Joe’s Hair and Tying it to the Sofa, “ and “Sending Buster in His BVD’s to Find Libby”, and “The Insurance Man in the Middle of the Diphtheria Quarantine.”

Grandmother had the most wonderful laugh. As I think about it, my father inherited parts of that laugh. The first part of her laugh was silent, building up steam and power, and then she’d break and with a “whoop” the rest of the laugh would just fall out of her. Usually she’d be wiping tears before she finished.

Grandmother seemed so unflappable, although I do remember her taking my boy cousins out to the shop behind the house to give them a few taps with her pancake turner. So she must have been a little flappable. But to me she was “slow and steady.” By the time I knew her she was very heavy and built sort of square. But not at all intimidating. Instead, she was accommodating. She’d let me put two spoons of sugar on my Rice Krispies, whereas Mama only allowed one. And she understood that I wouldn’t want to sleep in a big old bedroom by myself when I spent the night with them, so she’s the one who would make Pa sleep with his head at the foot of the bed, making room for me beside her. What better friend could a little girl have?