EDM #75 - Mama Dee Pound Cake

Response to EDM Challenge #75 - in my large Moleskine sketchbook.

This is my maternal grandmother's (Mama Dee) recipe for pound cake. She's been making it as long as I can remember, and when I go down to Alabama, she still makes it for me. I've loved it since I was a child. Mama Dee is one of those special people who have had a great deal of influence in my life - more, probably, than I even know.

She grew up during the Great Depression, and still saves her aluminum foil and washes out the ziploc bags after she uses them. She worked her way through nursing school and still refuses to go to the doctor when she's ill. She sent her husband off to World War II and had my mom while he was away. She's outlived both of her parents, two brothers, a grandson and countless cousins and friends. She's been married to my grandfather (Papa Dee, of course) for 65 years and they still share a DOUBLE bed.

I lived with my grandparents for the first year I was in college, and one of my fondest memories is that Mama Dee hummed all the time - mostly old hymns, and usually while she was working in the garden or doing housework. She doesn't remember things like she used to, and she doesn't get out and about as much as she once did, but at 86 years old, she is still making pound cakes, and she's still humming. I hope she always does.