When I was a little girl, I once asked my Granny why she didn’t wear big fancy hats like some of the ladies in our church congregation. While most women were hatless, there were a few who were veiled by the artful brim of woven pastel that epitomized flamboyance and mysterious beauty.
They looked fancy. I wanted a fancy Granny. More than anything, I wanted to be fancy. I wanted to clad myself in big hats, sparkly clothes, giant rhinestones and lipstick saturated with the richest red. Before there was Madonna, the “Material Girl,” there was me — a plain, quiet girl who looked more homely than haute. I couldn’t understand why my Granny wouldn’t want the same things as I did.
Granny was plain and modest. Tidy but unremarkable. Her clothes weren’t stylish and I only recall her owning one lipstick. I recently counted 17 lipsticks that I keep in my car for emergencies, the way other people keep a box of tissues or a spare tire. Granny wasted nothing and scolded me when I bought her gifts for “squandering” money on her.
Granny’s linen closet didn’t have any carefully embroidered linens. It was full of worn mismatched towels that I loved to smell. Not because they were scented with fine laundry detergent but because they smelled like her house. They smelled like love.
My Granny didn’t own anything of value. She bargained for other people’s junk at garage sales. She had a green vinyl sofa and none of the beds in her modest two-bedroom house had headboards. Her living room lamps were chipped and I don’t think she owned a single throw pillow. Her china cabinet held a random assortment of crackers and canned foods.
As the years passed, I had occasion to wear sequins, sparkles and a few other fancy things. It was okay; a flash of a mirage that felt artful but neither real nor sustaining. Still, it would be untrue to say that I didn’t like all the shine.
It has been 25 years since my Granny died and I am in awe at the indelible mark she made on my life. I search my memories for the big events and wise lessons colored out of the sepia-toned lens of nostalgia. I recall happy summers at her house, filled with frozen chicken pot pies served on mismatched television trays and recycled milk jugs containing wild blackberries that we picked roadside. But there aren’t any big events or wise lessons that stand out.
Instead, there was just the quiet example of her life. And, while it appeared quite plain, I realize how remarkably beautiful it was — both then and now. Hers was a life of service. A life where she put others first and took little for herself. She didn’t live in the material world, but she lives on in the immaterial things she taught me about faith and love.
I will never forget how sacred it felt to pray with her before bedtime — her in her single bed wedged against one wall and me in mine wedged perpendicularly on the other wall. She made me feel cherished, not by lavishing me with anything tangible but by loving me so lavishly. Perfectly plain was her love and somehow that allowed me to shine.
She seemed as taken with my own ordinariness as I was by those fancy ladies at her church. She taught me not to waste and to see abundance in what others would find measly.
As often as I think of her, I don’t miss her. She’s too much a part of me, knitted into me in a way that is more notable for its sturdy bind than its beauty. I carry her in the most ordinary ways and feel as close to her now as I ever did. She taught me that love doesn’t live in the big and fancy but it certainly does continue.
While I didn’t know it back then, that’s better than even the most decadent hat.
Lara C. Patangan is an inspirational author and speaker who writes about faith at larapatangan.com. Her first book, "Simple Mercies," is available now.
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