Page 4 - Spring 2022

s| AROUND MAIN STREET
A great grandmother’s
love is indelible
By Michael Prochaska
On my mother’s 18th birthday, my grandmother, Dorothy Drake, affectionately known as DD, wrote her a letter filled with the kind of knowledge that comes only from the wisdom of motherhood.
“Good parents know that feeding their child’s soul is just as important as feeding the child’s body and mind,” read her epistle. “I fed you until you were able to feed yourself.”
DD died Feb. 16, less than three months after the birth of her great granddaughter, Mary Louise Prochaska, and only two weeks after we celebrated her 93rd birthday.
With the exception of DD, our baby’s sex was unknown to our family and friends until the hour she was born on Dec. 21, 2021.
My maternal grandmother was the keeper of that secret because her health was in steep decline, and we thought it would keep her spirits high during a difficult year. To this day, I still think about her gleeful smile and the sly smirk she’d give my mother when my mom would try to guess the gender of our baby.
The time I spent with my DD—talking about politics, church and family—shaped me as a citizen, a Christian and now as a father. Even her passion for exercise inspired me to buy some weights and a jump rope. That will certainly pay off when Mary Louise is old enough to run and play sports, and I won’t be completely out of breath running alongside her.
It’s such a blessing that DD saw both her grandchildren graduate college, start our careers and raise our families.
God’s last calling for her was to meet her great granddaughter. And although Mary Louise is too young to form lasting memories, as she gets older, she will have the memories of us sharing stories about DD.
We’ll tell her how DD formed the first Girl Scout troop in Lexington, Virginia, for children who have special needs. We’ll tell her how DD was always active in her church and cared for the elderly, even when she never considered herself to be elderly. We’ll tell her about how DD sewed Halloween costumes for her grandchildren.
In the letter my grandmother penned to my mother, DD wrote, “You are a precious gift of love in my arms.”
She didn’t have to say it, but I could see that same sentiment in her eyes when she held her great granddaughter this past January. And a month later, when my wife and I knew it would be the last time we’d see DD, we sat by her side and gave her an olive-wood cross. She held onto that cross until her soul left this earth. And that, too, was a precious gift of love in her arms.
I lost my last grandparent this year, but I also became a father. This is the circle of life that God has designed. And every day, we see this in our backyard garden. Flowers blossom, and they also wither and fade. It is a great gift to care for life, even when it feels like it’s fleeting.
In parenthood, like a good gardener, we witness the power of a nurturing hand.
In the spring of 2011, when Oconee the Magazine was still in its infancy, the late Publisher Vinnie Williams wrote, “Growing a human...Is there anything else so worth growing?”
sMichael Prochaska is editor of OCONEE THE MAGAZINE and The Oconee Enterprise newspaper in Watkinsville, Ga.
Volume 12, Number 4 Spring 2022
Supplement to The Oconee Enterprise Publisher
Maridee Williams
Editor
Michael Prochaska
Advertising Director
Maridee Williams
Contributing Writers
Wendy Cooper Joshua Darnell
Emily Dozier
Nancy Hansford Justin Hubbard Cyndee Perdue Moore Morgan Phillips Michael Prochaska
Contributing Photographers
Joshua Darnell
Justin Hubbard Morgan Phillips Michael Prochaska River Oak Photography Greer Wells
Graphic Design
Allyn R. Jenkins Arlette Revells George H. Windate
Sales Representatives
Tracy Harmon Maridee Williams
Circulation
Amanda Prochaska Maridee Williams
OCONEE THE MAGAZINE is published quarterly plus a holiday bonus issue
by Oconee Enterprise, Inc. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without express written consent of the publisher. This includes advertisements designed and produced by OCONEE THE MAGAZINE.
OCONEE THE MAGAZINE accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs or artwork, and none will be returned without a self-addressed, stamped envelope.
Address inquiries to:
P.O. Box 535, Watkinsville, GA 30677 or oconeethemagazine@gmail.com
© 2022 Oconee Enterprise, Inc. All rights reserved.
PAGE 2 | OCONEE THE MAGAZINE | SPRING 2022