I miss my Granny Kinne.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I miss my Granny Baylor, my Momma’s mother, but I do not have the memories or the smiles imbedded in my soul of her the way I do of Granny Kinne.  Maybe it is the redheaded Irish tie that binds us or the love of the written word, but I see so much of her here in my everyday life.

Mary Ann Connelly Kinne was a spitfire little Irish lady, only 4 foot 11 inches tall, but every inch, every area of her amplified a life of love and a life of giving.  She was born in 1899 in Roxbury, Massachusetts after her father, Michael and her mother, Bridget, left Galway, Ireland to come to the United States. The States proved to be a lonely place for Bridget. She left May (as she was called)  & her brother, Bill,  with Michael. She took their brothers, Michael  & John,  back to Ireland. 

I cannot imagine a mother leaving her children 

I cannot imagine the effects it had on all involved. 

I can only think it made Granny the strong woman she became later in life.

She met my Grandfather in Miami in 1925, married him there and moved to Springfield, Massachusetts where my father was born in 1927. She had a very close life with my Grandfather and Daddy.  She diligently documented their lives in multiple scrapbooks and photographs. She stood by her husband as he drove as an Indy relief driver, worked as the Southeastern parts manager for Rolls Royce during the great depression and as he lost everything due to his alcoholism . His drinking affected their lives in many ways including never being able to lay down roots long enough to be settled.  They spent their lives in Atlanta, Georgia, Columbia, South Carolina and multiple small towns in South Carolina until he found his sobriety.  They found their way to Charleston in 1940 where they both became involved with AA. She spent her days volunteering at Stark General Hospital where she would script articles and send them to  the families of the wounded soldiers.  These were the things I read about in the Post and Courier and were handed down to me through Momma and Daddy, not the things I remembered. 

Those were all of their memories. 

Mine affected me so much more.

Mine were walking with my Mother to the front of Ashley Hall Manor each Thursday where we would wait with smiles and laughter for Granny to step off the steps of the Charleston city bus.  She came every week in her freshly pressed housedress, pocketbook in hand and spent the day with us.  I remember the smells of the iron hitting the line dried sheets and how she sang songs and told little Irish quips.  I remember going to Sunday School at the Baptist church and being reprimanded for asking about Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the 15 cops! 

I remember every word to Freckles, a very distinct Irish song about a mischievous little boy:

Freckles was his name. He always used to get the blame. For every broken window pane, oh, how they told him they’d scold him. And when he’d tease the girls, when in school, he’d pull their curls. He wasn’t much of a scholar, but fight, oh, buddy! The other fellows nose was always bloody. People used to coax, young Freckles to not to play his jokes, but how he teased the village folks, it was a shame.  But when the cat had kittens up in the hay, one was black and seven were grey. Everybody yelled FRECKLES! He always got the blame.

I remember her joke about Don’t make love by the garden gate. Love may be blind, but the neighbor’s ain’t. I remember how she would take us, along with the neighborhood kids, downtown to the Riviera Theatre to see the latest Disney film release by city bus, of course.  Not just once, but whenever there was something new.  She made my favorite dolls their clothes, carefully pressed each and every pillow case and crocheted beautiful doilies for my Momma’s tables.

Granny Kinne has been gone now for 33 years. 

She spent the last eight years of her life in an Alzheimer’s hold. 

She didn’t know me or my siblings.

She didn’t know her own son.

In her head, she was a young girl on the arm of a handsome race care driver sitting on the steps of an antebellum home. 

She was a shell of the woman I knew. 

Gone the city bus, the singing,  the spry little Irish lady.

I don’t think I ever really grieved her loss until I was in my forties. Maybe because when she died we had already lost her years before, maybe it was my own selfishness of youth. It has taken my own years to begin to catch up with me to see how much of her resides in my soul. 

I have an affinity for freshly ironed sheets. 

I sing Freckles whenever I have a child on my lap and hope that song lives on with them and is passed along. 

I will occasionally wear a hat that will have my sister shout out “love your Granny Kinne hat!” I know my sister knows I picked that hat purely out of love and memories. 

I guess my black yoga pants are my Granny’s housedress. I always carry a pocketbook –never a purse. I hold close the lovely works she crocheted close to heart and in my home. Her Apostleship of Prayer tag which is pasted on felt resides in my camera bag.  Her Saint Anne laminated card stays in my wallet reminding me that my Granny is in heaven watching over me daily.  

I know she is smiling that I have become the Catholic she always prayed I would be.

I can still get a rise from her little Irish ways! 

She gave me so much more than I ever realized.

I can only hope I leave the same impression on someone’s soul.