There are only two occasions from my young life when I can remember my mama being gone from our home for any length of time. As my sister and I got older and somewhat responsible enough not to burn the house down, she would go to Griffin for a few hours. She’d leave and we’d be alone.

But I’m talking about being gone for a few days, maybe a week or more. It was highly unusual for her to go anywhere or do anything that did not include all of us. A girl’s trip for her was as simple as an afternoon of shopping with a friend.

The first time she was gone, it was a trip to the hospital to have a kidney removed. Not exactly a vacation. Dad and my sister and I were left to fend for ourselves. Dad fried something in a skillet, and to his surprise, I made biscuits.

“You know how to do that?” he asked.

“I’ve been watching her every day. I can make gravy, too.”

Our suppers were not pretty, but we didn’t starve. There was no such thing as a quick turn around from surgery back in those days. And even though she eventually came home, her absence from the kitchen lingered for a while. As a result, my biscuits got better looking with every try.

Born in 1924, she married my dad when she was just 19 years old; 4 months shy of being 20. Her mama walked away from the family when she and her sister were small. I never knew why. I just knew that it left a wound in her that remained until the day she died.

She was raised during the Great Depression by her grandparents. They were tough on her. Life was hard. There wasn’t much to go around by way of food, clothes, or fun. Free and happy times, the way she used to tell it, hardly ever came during her childhood.

The one thing her grandmother did for her was to teach her how to use a sewing machine. When she turned 18, she packed her bag, took a job in the sock mill in Griffin, and never looked back. She was out in the world on her own, sewing the toes of socks by the hundreds to make ends meet.

In September of 1946, almost three years after she and Dad got married, she got word that Hazel, her sister, had been brutally murdered in a domestic argument with her husband. I have the Western Union telegram that she kept in the nightstand by her bed. She never spoke of her pain. She did not hold any bitterness against God. But I am convinced that she never forgot her loss.

The women of her era did not lust for luxury. She may have dreamed of what it might be like. But extravagance was not necessary for contentment. She always seemed confident to me of who she was. She was happy with her lot in life and in spite of her hardships and heartaches, she was a delightful person.

She was also frugal to a fault. She worked hard in the garden to put up food for the year. She canned or put in the freezer nearly everything we ate. She spent countless hours at her sewing machine making our clothes. She saved aluminum foil. She patched and mended. She turned old pants into sacks. She made what she had work, or she did without.

I tell you all of this to say that the thought of going somewhere for the fun of it all on her own might as well have been a wish to walk on the moon. It was not practical, and she wouldn’t allow herself to dream of it.

However, a new possibility began to stir in her about the time I was in high school. The seed of the idea may have been planted a decade earlier when she and my sister went to see Elvis in “Blue Hawaii.” She would pepper into the conversation at the supper table comments about Hawaii.

“I hear the pineapples in Hawaii are the best,” she would say.

Dad would grunt. “These Del Monte slices out of the can are pretty good.”

She even bought herself a small stereo so she could play the Elvis gospel album. She liked Bing Crosby, Perry Como, and Tennessee Ernie Ford, but she loved Elvis.

“You should hear Elvis sing How Great Thou Art. I just love his voice.”

Mama always sewed for neighbors and friends. A dress for Easter. Hemming up curtains. Fixing a torn pillow. But in the early 70s, she took on a paying job for an embroidery shop in Atlanta. She would take other people’s embroidery work and turn them into pillows, or rugs, or Christmas stockings. She repaired damaged pieces. And each time she returned her work to the shop, she got paid quite favorably.

That money was what allowed her to formulate a dream.

She said to Dad, “I want to go to Hawaii.”

Dad retorted, “Where are we gonna get the money to go to Hawaii?”

“I’ve got most of it,” she said, “and by next year I’ll have enough.”

It was the first time, I think, that Dad realized that her sewing was more than just a hobby. But he was not much of a traveller. Hawaii didn’t interest him at all.

“Well, I don’t care anything about going to Hawaii.”

“I know that.” she said. “That’s why I’ve been talking with Inez Daniel about going with me.”

The winter of my junior year, 1973, Mama and Miss Inez boarded a plane in Atlanta and made the trip of a lifetime. Not only did they sample the pineapples and dance at the luau, but they bought tickets to see Elvis live in concert. My Lord, two 50-something-year-old women cheering to “Burning Love.”

All these years later, I look back on that trip and think about how proud I am of her for doing that. I admire the courage it took for her to step out of her little world at 1503 Hampton-Locust Grove Road. Other than a few nice pieces of jewelry and an occasional coat from Rich’s, it was the only time I ever knew her to do anything just for herself. For the pure fun of it.

She bought me an authentic Hawaiian shirt on that trip. Dark tropical green with white flowers. I wore it all the time. Bell-bottom Levis. Converse high-tops.

A decade or so later, when Magnum PI came on TV, she looked forward to every episode. She’d comment on the places she had seen. How the TV didn’t do it justice. How beautiful the beaches were. How the sun shimmered off the tropical ocean waves.

She worked for it. She imagined it. And she showed me how much one small dream can matter.

Anyway, this came up because my buddy, Aaron, wore a Hawaiian shirt recently. I told him a much shorter version of this story about my Hawaiian shirt.

“I’ve never heard that about your mom,” he said. “You should write about that in your next blog.”

Not a bad idea.