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.
