Extended Family

In college, I worked as a tour guide at the founder's house, a great white columned house that wasn't quite Tara but close enough. I initially sought the position because of the promise of wearing an antebellum dress - and I now know how to drive in hoop skirts. Little did I know that one of the unadvertised job perks was working for Vesta. A tiny little woman with the most lovable Southern accent ever with more energy and vive the you could imagine, considering she celebrated her 70th birthday my freshman year of college. She finally retired last year.

We kept the "office" in the kitchen at the back of the house, and I spent inumerable hours at the white metal table eating vegetable soup or homemade biscuits and hot tea. Over the years, Vesta transformed from supervisor to friend to family.

As already mentioned this week, my mother's mother died before I was born, and the woman my grandfather remarried wasn't exactly a cookie-baking cheek-pinching grandma. And my father's mother died when I was 11. After a childhood almost completely devoid of grandparents, I had suddenly gone out into the world and adopted one.

Just after I graduated college, I was going to a friend's wedding in Memphis - a fellow tour guide. Vesta wasn't going to the wedding, but several of us were meeting at the college to travel together. I asked her if I could come the night before and spend the night. She welcomed me. And she cooked dinner and we sat and talked until we grew sleepy and she tucked me into the little twin bed in the guest room. The next morning, she made coffee and waffles and peeled an orange for me because I had a particular fondness for them in college. When I left, I teared up a little - because it was the first time I ever got to go to Grandma's house.

I went to see her today in the little cottage (in the picture) where she lives - as I do when I'm in town for college homecoming or Thanksgiving or a week in spring. And she listened to me and loved me and laughed with me and advised me about life. She has an enormous family - born one of seven and with three children of her own, eight grandchildren and a handful of great grandchildren. But with Vesta, there's always room for one more, blood or no blood, and so she welcomes me home every time I come.