I was at Jack of the Wood last night to hear Firecracker Jazz Band (those guys are fantastic, by the way, check them out if you're in this area). While sitting outside, I looked up to see one of my daddy's first cousins looking at me and grinning. I immediately jumped up and hugged him, and then laughed and told him not to dare tell anyone in the family he'd seen me at a bar. He sat down and we got to talking, reminiscing about people in the family that are gone. He's been coming to JotW for years, apparently, and he knows the owners, so when he orders a rum and coke it's a tiny bit of coke mixed into a beer glass full of rum (side note: he also bought me a Long Island Iced Tea that I had to stop drinking halfway through and give to my friend because it was so potent).

One thing I ought to explain: my family is sort of divided up into sections. Even though this man is my daddy's first cousin, there's still a section that's considered my side of the family. It's a really large section basically consisting of my Granny and Papaw's eight children and all of their progeny. Anyway, while we were talking and the alcohol was slowly getting lower in the glasses, he looked at me and said, "Amanda, I don't know if you realize how much your family means to me. I would walk straight into the middle of hell for any of your people." He then made it a point to introduce me to all his friends that started walking up to the doors, and each and every one of them he said, "I would kill for this girl's people. They mean the world to me." Then at one point he said, "Every now and then I go to Marie's house, even though she's the only one there anymore, because it still feels like going home."

Then he got to talking and showed me a scar on his thumb and told me about how "Aunt Geneva", who was my Granny, had cooked him up a big batch of biscuits way up in the morning when he got home from the army, past the time when she'd normally be cooking breakfast, and my Papaw went out to the smokehouse and cut a big ol' slice of country ham (our country hams are three times the size of those in the stores) for her to cook. My cousin said that the ham was so thick, he couldn't get through it with the knife, and when the knife slipped he got that scar on his thumb. He finished the story up with, "And it was the best damn ham I've ever eat in my life."

It just makes me feel so damn blessed to have the family that I do. I know they're a little backwards in their thinking sometimes, but they are the most genuine, loving people in the whole world. I know that none of them even realize the effect they have on other people, the effect that their kindness and their generosity and their all-around good spirit has, but whenever anyone talks to me about my family, it's always the highest praises. They don't extend hospitality the way that they do out of any sense of duty or begrudgement; they do it out of the pure goodness of their hearts.

I hope that I fit into that category with them. I think maybe I do; I remember when Mrs. Shepherd's husband died, her son Robert came up to Daddy at the funeral home with tears in his eyes and told my Daddy how much my visits to Mrs. Shepherd mean to her. The highest compliment I've ever gotten came from two different people, with slightly different wording. The first said, "Mandy, you are the only genuinely kind person I've ever met in my life." The second said, "You're one of the few really genuine people I know." And I want that, more than anything, just to be genuine in whatever emotion I have. I don't want to put on a show. If I'm going to be happy, I have to be genuinely happy. I am so, so thankful that 90% of the time, I am able to be genuinely happy without faking any of it. For that matter, if people can't deal with that 10% that I'm not genuinely happy, then I don't care to be around them. One of my favorite quotes is from Marilyn Monroe when she said, "I'm impatient, selfish, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control, and at times hard to handle, but if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."

So I'll end with a song lyric today...this song in particular because after my cousin had gotten up to smoke a cigarette and I was sitting there chatting with his friends, out of nowhere he started singing this chorus to me, and it's a song my family has sung me ever since I was a little girl.



Amanda, light of my life.
Fate should have made you a gentleman's wife.
Amanda, light of my life.
Fate should have made you a gentleman's wife.