When I was a small child before I was school age a lady who became my second momma kept me. If you are unfamiliar with the term "second momma" it is a generally southern term that means a lady that is very close to you and you have a loving mother-daughter type relationship. Her name was Mrs. Fay and she was wonderful. My mom, an elementary school teacher, stayed home a year after I was born and then returned to work. Mrs. Fay was a lady we knew from church and we knew her family well. My parents asked Mrs. Fay if she would be my babysitter. She had said she had to think about it.
The story is on the way home from church a little later my parents saw Mrs. Fay's husband, Harry (not his real name, it is Charles William), looking at a car on a car lot on main street. We lived in a very small town. It was a small car lot on a short main street. My dad pulled over and began to hop out. My mother asked him what he was doing. His answer? "Hiring us a babysitter."
***not the actual dealership***
He approached Harry and made the argument that if Mrs. Fay would keep me, the wage would help pay for the car he was looking at or it could go towards whatever else they needed or wanted. Mrs. Fay stayed home with their two children, middle and high school age, a boy and a girl. Harry worked at DuPont. It was a persuasive argument, apparently. After thinking about it some more, they agreed she would keep me while mom worked. And so it began.
Mrs. Fay's home quickly became my second home. Harry a second daddy. Her children second siblings. In fact, we were so close it was said if something happened to my momma and daddy, I was going to live with Mrs. Fay and Harry. I called him Harry, he called me Ralph Rotten. It was just our thing.
They lived on some farmland just outside of our small town. They had cows and some crops and hay fields. In the field next to their home in the spring time buttercups (daffodils) bloomed. And not just a few, almost an acre of buttercups. To my small eyes they went on forever. Mrs. Fay would take me out in the afternoons before mom would come pick me up. She would set me down in the middle of the field and let me pick buttercups as far as I could reach. I can remember sitting there, just picking and grabbing flowers as far as my little arms would allow me to. She would send me home with buckets of buttercups.
Harry, myself, and Mrs. Fay at her 80th birthday She's still my second momma
Y'all, I'm 38 years old. I am here to tell you for my entire life those memories of sitting in the sunshine in the field, picking buttercups as far as I can reach under the clear blue sky are some of the happiest and most comforting I have. Buttercups mean peace and contentment for me. During really dark times I think on them a lot. I think about how I felt during that time and how beautiful they were and how happy they made me.
My left shoulder cap piece
To this day they are my favorite flower. I have a tattoo piece featuring them as reminders when they are not in bloom. Reminders that things haven't always been dark and they won't always be. Reminders that I am loved and cared for, not just by Mrs. Fay and Harry, but many others. Reminders contentment and peace are possible again.
My hope for you is that you also have something you cling to like this. And if you don't, I pray you do find that one day.
Be well, y'all.