A Healing Tea
My grandmother, Flossie Partin Seigler Gibson, and I were never very close. She was my adopted father's mother, and she and my mother weren't very close, so that might have been why I wasn't close to her.
I wrote a letter to her in the fall of 2002 because she had told one of my cousins that if I would write to her, that she would give me some information on our family tree. I got one of the most beautiful letters from her that I have ever received from anyone. She told me that she loves me and that she always felt like my mamaw, and I had never known that. She lives in Middlesboro, Bell County, Ky., and she is 90 years old now.
My father died in February of 1985, and my mother died in November of 2000. My biological father died in November of 1995, and my maternal grandmother died when my mom was only 3, and my grandmother (my biological father's mother) died in 1997. Many of my aunts and uncles are gone too, so I feel so blessed to have the chance to know my grandmother after all these years. I am sorry that I hadn't been to see her since my father died in February of 1985.
My grandmother and I started writing letters back and forth, and I went to see her last May. We had a very nice visit. Then I talked to her on the phone a few times after that. Last summer, she had a stroke. She can still talk but she can't get around very well, so she is in a nursing home. I have talked to her on the phone but I haven't been to see her since she has been in the nursing home. I hope to go to see her again soon.
When I was 7 years old, my maternal grandfather, Floyd Hooker, died. We had to travel from Miami County, Ohio, to Bell County, Kentucky, for his funeral. I got sick on the way there, so I stayed with my great grandmother, Ellen Hoskins Partin, because I was too sick to go to the funeral home. I had the old-fashioned measles. My parents took me to the hospital there in Pineville, and the doctor said for me to stay in a dark room and gave me some medicine. I wasn't getting any better, so my grandmother, Flossie, went out in the woods and got some kind of root or bark and boiled it and made a tea for me, and it helped me so much. I am not sure if it was sassafras or some other kind. My mom always told me that her giving me that tea probably saved my life. I don't know if that is really true or not, but I sure wish that I would have been a better granddaughter to my grandmother. She still asks me if I remember her giving me that tea, and I tell her, that yes, I do.
I am so thankful to the Lord for letting me have this chance to know my grandmother again. We all should try to mend fences while we are still here, because once we are gone, it is too late. Also, I have learned from my experience not to let others influence how I perceive my family. Maybe they are just waiting for a phone call or a letter. Don't be afraid to make the first move to get close to a loved one. I hope that my story will inspire someone else to make that first step.
By Charlotte Anne Seigler Miller
March 31, 2004
