My Brave Little Taylor

My brave little Taylor, I depended on him for everything.

When my second was born, my brave little Taylor was the one who helped.

When I needed diapers, my brave little Taylor would run and get me one.

I had gone Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve in Muscle Shoals with my husband and in-laws when I started having labor pains. We were on Veterans Drive near Holiday Inn, which is now Hampton Inn,n when I had my first labor pain.

That night, we gave my brave little Taylor his Christmas present, a big red wagon.

Early the next morning, we went to the hospital where my second son was born at 7:27 A.M.

We lived with my in-laws after my second son was born until we moved into our house in February of the following year.

We slept on the fold-out sofa, and the living room and kitchen have no walls between them.

My mother-in-law worked at Genesco, and so did my husband. 

Every morning, my mother-in-law would cook biscuits and gravy and put on a pot of coffee. I hated the taste of coffee, and the smell made me sick.

My mother-in-law always cooked a large meal for Sunday dinner. She always cooked a pot of white beans, sometimes peas, and always some kind of meat. Most of her cooking was done on Saturday, so all she had to do was warm up the food.

My in-laws only had two children: my husband and his sister.

Every Sunday, everyone would gather at my in-laws for Sunday dinner after church, which ended at 11 A.M.

This ritual went on for many years until she got Alzheimer's disease.

While we were sitting at one of those Sunday dinners, my husband and I got into an argument.
We were still arguing as we got into the car and left. As we approached the pine thicket hill, I became so enraged that I said I was getting out of the vehicle. My sister was visiting with us; she was sitting in the middle of the car seat between my husband and me. 

I opened the car door and started to get out when he speeds up, I was hanging onto the car door being dragged. My dress was ripped off, with gravel in my arm, which left a scar, and I was a few months pregnant with my second son.

In later years, my mother-in-law cooked breakfast and sometimes supper for my middle son when he moved his trailer alongside the creek bank, which was across the road from her house.

His dog, Pat, stayed at her house every day after my son went to work, and my mother-in-law would feed her.

In the afternoons, Pat Mae waited patiently on her porch until she heard my son's car coming down the road; it was like she knew how to tell time.

Pat Mae would take off running to greet my son as he drove into his driveway.

Pat Mae was born before April 2002. She lived for over thirteen years.

My father-in-law died in April 200,5, and his wife lived several years in their home alone.

My mother-in-law was taken to Lauderdale Christian Nursing Home, where she lived for many years until she died in 2012.