Wednesday, April 25, 2012

LESSONS FROM DADDY


2/25/12 Peonies----I just love them. Mama Davenport had gorgeous ones on the rise in her back yard---her cutting garden. The peony bushes backed up to her neighbors’ fence and many a family picture was snapped there among all the blooms in her cutting garden. She would cut peonies and bring them in for her kitchen table. Before they made it to the table they would sit in a big watering can on the back steps outside Dang-Dang’s sleeping porch door. Those blooms full of petals would make us all smile. Blossoms of white with a few pink thrown in for interest.
She loved them first. Therefore I couldn’t help but love them.
They were Mama’s  “pee OWN nees”----regardless of how Webster says we’re to pronounce peony, Mama’s accent was always on the 2nd syllable.
As a child, Daddy taught me to never make fun of another’s pronunciation when it was different from my own. I still remember the pain/shame I felt from that admonishment when I giggled at Mama’s pronunciation of our phone #---Tuxedo 5-3985. A lesson taken to heart. Kindness taught in a teachable moment. (Ephesians 4: 1-2, 32)
Hopefully, I will continue to afford this grace to others. Another of Daddy’s lessons well learned.