Like Scout Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird", I saw the effortless grace and elegance of the women around me and realized that "there was some skill involved in being a girl," and I knew I didn't just want to grow up and be a woman.

I wanted to grow up and be a lady.
(~Sophie Hudson, A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet, p. 38)

Now I've never known my mama to harbor unforgiveness toward anyone, but the accidental destruction of all that gorgeous Rosenthal china was a sanctifying experience for her. Mama has always found comfort in Scripture, and I daresay that if she hadn't trusted so deeply in the book of James's admonition to "count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds," those broken cups and saucers might have caused a permanent rift in her marriage, as well as a touch of the post-traumatic stress disorder.

And to be perfectly honest, I think Mama may have struggled for a day or two with the end of that verse, which assures us that our trials ultimately mold us into people who are "perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."

Because GUESS WHAT, JAMES? SHE WAS STILL LACKING THOSE ROSENTHAL CUPS AND SAUCERS.

Clearly James wasn't privy to the details of Mama's harrowing china ordeal when he wrote his epistle.

Naturally, Mama recovered. Laughed about it, even. She contented herself with her remaining Rosenthal Hillside salad and dinner plates, and I'll have you know that she still uses them, almost fifty years later. 

The Lord always leaves a remnant, you know. I'm pretty sure James would agree.
(~Sophie Hudson, A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet, p. 21.)

Martha would tell you even now that she would have never wanted her dear friend to suffer, that it makes her smile to think of Rubena in heaven. She would tell you how grateful she is for the blessing of having a lifelong friend who, for the better part of seventy years had been a supportive, encouraging example of Christlike love.

But she would also tell you that she misses her friend every single day, that she feels lonely sometimes when she goes to the Belks and doesn't have to fun over to the dresses section to check a size for Rubena. And she would tell you that she'd give anything if they could leave the mall together and eat dinner at the Western Sizzling' one more time. 
(~Sophie Hudson, A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet, p. 17)

So for me, Mamaw's death was my first glimpse into what family looks like in the midst of sadness and grief and heartache. I couldn't have put words to it at the time, I don't think, but somehow I could sense that there was beauty in all that brokenness, that there were little patches of light that permeated the darkness. Yes, there was sorrow and pain--but there was also love and comfort and laughter and joy. There was a confidence that something bigger was at work, an assurance of "an eternal glory that far outweighs them all" (2 Corinthians 4:17, NIV).
(~Sophie Hudson, A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet, p. 8)

They couldn't have known how deeply I was soaking in the words and the expressions and the testimonies and the laughter that surrounded me when I would perch on the edge of a breakfast room chair and listen to the grown-ups hold court. But I was taking it all in--and I've never forgotten.
(~Sopie Hudson, A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet, introduction)

Any piece of furniture, I don't care how beautiful it is, has got to be lived with, and kicked about, and rubbed down, and mistreated... and repolished, and knocked around and dusted and sat on or slept in or eaten off of before it develops its real character...A good deal like human beings.
(~Edna Ferber, So Big)

Any house that has enough porches, and two or three bathrooms and at least eight closets can be lived in comfortably, no matter what else it has or hasn't got.
(~Edna Ferber, So Big)