Before the handsome boy and his mixed up tales and impulsive adventures was a young woman from a tiny family farm in rural Georgia. She loved to sing and to be loved. She loved to laugh and cry happy tears. She met a handsome man whom she married and while he was away in the army she and her son had an apartment and she sewed, baked hams and cornbread and had hope. The kind of hope we all have when young, the kind that feels like the end of life and the present are so far apart that you are truly shocked when something sad or bad happens. She took the boy on her hip and hung out laundry in the fresh southern sun and bought root beer and coca-cola in glass bottles. She was happy and independent now, not needing to ask for anything so she helped her sisters and brothers near by. She wasn’t the oldest but the most loved by all. Her heart was big and she always had room for more friends to laugh with and more people to assist in the best way that she could.