Honey Suckle Anyhow

I was leaving home, heading into the city to pick-up my grandparents to take them to church, one Sunday morning when I decided to grab a hand full of fresh honey suckle from the nearby forestry to sweeten my ride.

Honey suckle grows wild in my neighborhood. But I hadn’t thought to pick some to freshen my home and car until I saw a neighbor picking it.

I had loved honey suckle since I first noticed it’s sweet fragrance as a little girl. It grew in the front yard of my biological grandmother, the woman who had given my mother away as a toddler and later rejected my mother’s attempts to reconnect. I hated visiting her because she was so mean. But I was forced to spend time with her, and, to make the most of it, I delighted in whatever I could. When my cousins and I discovered the honey suckle bush in her front yard, we delighted in pulling the stem from the flower and dipping it on our tongue to savor its sweet juice. Honey scent of honey suckle always reminded me of this grandmother I loved to loath.

This grandmother had been contrary when not down right mean. Unlike the woman who adopted my mother and became affectionately known to me as “my real Grandmother,” my biological grandmother had mocked religion and church folk, calling it all “some foolishness,” and “non-sense.” This grandmother, who had conceived 11 babies by a married man and given all but three up for adoption, had gone to church only on Bingo nights as far as I knew. She had left her three young children at home to fend for them selves. She had used the child support money their father gave her to gamble. She had died a withering death, first losing her ability to maintain her own health and hygiene, then she succumbed to heart disease. But honey suckle always reminded me of her because I had discovered it first in her front yard.

As I picked a couple fists full of honey suckle to scent my car for my ride to church this particular morning, I delighted in realizing that God had blessed this grandmother with abundant honey suckle in her own yard despite her often spoken disdain for our notions of God and for organized religion. God had blessed her with honey suckle anyhow.

I was reminded that the sun shines on sinner and saint and the rain nourishes us regardless of our beliefs.