Thankful Thursday - Mae Pressley Worley

The summer of 1978 was a confusing, upsetting summer for me. It was the summer that I turned thirteen and all that comes with that for a girl, and the summer that we left my childhood home to a new home in a new school district.

My daddy bought a piece of property in a somewhat rural part of the county. It wasn't full on Boony-ville, but it wasn't the neighborhood that I had grown up in. Although I didn't know it then, the property itself was going to be a great place to be.

While my parents tended to all of the things necessary with buying land and setting up a new home, my three siblings and I had to live elsewhere. I went to stay with my Aunt Mae, my grandma's older sister. I don't remember my brothers and sister being there with me, so I don't know where they stayed. Although I loved (still do!) my Aunt Mae dearly, I cried and cried when my parents left. The crying turned to anger at being left and, in effect, homeless, not knowing what was going to happen or if they were really even going to come back for me. I am ashamed to say it, but I took it out on Aunt Mae.

I was sassy and disobedient, not because I was on the brink of teen-hood, but because I was scared and had no control over what was happening in my life. I've never done well with the unknown. Aunt Mae was safe to be scared with. She loved me through it, though I know I must have caused her to shed many tears that summer. She never let me see them.

I will be forever grateful for the grace and the love that she showed to me that summer through all of my raging and tears. Aunt Mae went on to her Heavenly reward on 10 October 1985. I miss her more than words can say. She is one of the women who built me and I am thankful to have had her in my life.

Ray, Carolee, Aunt Mae, Suzanne, and Robert

This is a photo of Aunt Mae, me, and my brothers and sister standing in front of the house that we left. That house was at 508 Wellington Street, Anderson, South Carolina. It no longer exists, nor does the house that was across the street at 507 Wellington Street, which we lived in for a short time before moving to the 508 house.