“Son, accept what the Lord gives,” Mama said, as I stared glumly at the plate of food she placed before me.
All I could think of was the cotton crop wasting away in our rain-soaked fields. In September, we started harvesting our weakest land, and the yield averaged over two bales per acre. My brother picked it, I ginned it, and Dad oversaw the whole operation. With fifty crops behind him, he was certain we were destined to enjoy our best year ever.
Then, the rains came. By the time we finished gathering that crop — well into a cold, dreary February — the yield was down to one and a quarter bales per acre, and the cotton’s quality wouldn’t have made good mops.
Somehow, we stayed in business, but still, bad weather seemed determined to put us in the unemployment lines. Spring planting was piecemeal — under anything but ideal conditions. As always, Mama’s unflinching optimism strengthened me: “Son, when a year starts off this bad, it’s bound to end up good.” We made one of our finest crops ever. I should never have doubted her.
Mama was a dynamo, a tireless wife, mother, homemaker, gardener, artist, and devout Christian. We six children often took her for granted, but that never dimmed her zest for caring for us.
Her days were longer than those of anyone else on that sprawling cotton plantation. Every night, she worked long after we’d gone to bed, and hours before we rolled over the first time, she was up, washing, ironing, and cooking. When she slept, I don’t know. And if one of us children came down sick, it was certain she never closed an eye until the crisis was over.
Her parents were immigrant sharecroppers, and except on Sundays and schooldays, she and her siblings left the breakfast table for a long day’s work when their father uttered that universal farm expression: “Time to go to the field.”
Despite the Great Depression, Mama’s family prospered. They were industrious, self-reliant, and self-sufficient. Everything they needed was either grown or made by hand, and Mama often commented that they didn’t even know a depression was going on. They were proud, hard-working, Christian people, and wouldn’t have taken welfare had it been offered to them. Making the American dream come true, they rose from sharecroppers to landowners. Grandfather died and left his family a debt-free farm.
The devastating illness of Mama’s last years tested her faith and courage more than anything she’d ever endured. Yet, this woman, always a mother first, never thought of herself, only us. Daily, she suffered excruciating pain, nausea, and vertigo, but never complained. She took what the Lord gave, certain of what He would give in the next life.
A line from a John Milton poem reads, “Who best bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best.” Mama knew that. She served her family, she served her Maker, and long years ago, she joined Him.
Every day, I love and miss you, Farm Mama.
Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.
This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.
Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
