tribute from this week's print edition...

A great, graceful Southern lady has fallen
Grace is a fleeting quality.
Many seek it. Few find it. Those born with it have the - yes, grace - not to flaunt it.
Webster, the dictionary man, defines it thusly: simple elegance or refinement of movement; courteous good will; an attractively polite manner of behaving; a short prayer before a meal; to do honor or credit to someone or something by one’s presence.
Louise Grace Corry Jackson died last week after a battle with cancer. She graced this Earth for 69 years - 49 of which she was married to her devoted husband Holland.
When Laura and I first came here, we knew not a soul. We were stepping into very public careers and desperately needed an introduction into society. Alas, we were not on the societal A list.
Louise befriended us and, once you were on Louise’s list, you were on everybody’ s list.
I will be forever grateful for that.
Louise was a gourmet cook. She could do chateaubriand for two dozen with the effort it takes me to make a PBJ for the kids.
Her kitchen was a great place to spend an evening. You got to watch a master at work and then enjoy the results of her labors.
She could tie the best bow on the planet. A gift from Louise was always elaborately wrapped and adorned with a magnificent bow.
Once, when Laura was out of town, I took the girls to church. I had dressed them in the dresses she laid out before she left and tied the bows in back.
We arrived at church and Louise called her Goddaughters aside. With a few deft flicks of the wrist, she had transformed my pedestrian bows into works of art.
Louise could tell stories about her family, Barnesville and its characters for hours on end. She may have known more anecdotal history of the area than anyone else. Legends came to life through her tales and I often felt I knew the person being described after listening for awhile. That is a storyteller's gift.
Louise brought out the best in others. Arrange flowers with her and the tricolor was yours. Draw her as a cooking partner for some party and you were an instant chef. To have her help you decorate was like having a New York interior designer at your beck and call.
For years, Louise and Holland hosted a lavish Christmas Eve party at their home. Her tree was handpicked and perfectly lighted and decorated with dark haired angels.
Generations of young people snuck their first kiss - or, perhaps, their first beer - in the basement while the adults gathered overhead. The holiday season just isn’t the same without that party.
But, life just isn’t going to be the same without Mama Louise.
In my mind’s eye, I see her dressed head to toe in red and black leading the cheers on Bourbon Street. “I say Georgia. You say Bulldogs,” she exhorts the crowd.
I see her lovingly tending her rose garden, her husband, her daughter Elizabeth and her precious grandchild Grace Louise.
I see her at the dental office she and Holland manned for decades, buried in a stack of x-rays, dental charts and Medicaid forms.
I see her on her usual pew at church watching my eldest serve as an acolyte for the first time earlier this year. Despite being seriously ill, she willed herself to the church because grace and duty drove her to do it.
I see her in the passenger seat of a black Cadillac on her way to her beloved Savannah, my hometown.
John Berendt, in his classic Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, penned a line that goes something like this. In Charleston, they ask about your family. In Atlanta, they ask about your business. In Savannah, they ask, ‘What would you like to drink’.
That line reminds me of Mama Louise
Louise was stricken with breast cancer over 30 years ago. She survived to touch many lives. She was graceful enough not to belabor her illness. In the end, it came back to take her from us far too soon.
She died in her beautiful home, wrapped in gorgeous linens in an antique bed that was the first piece she and Holland acquired after their marriage.
She was a picture of grace to the end.
I can only imagine the gourmet feast being prepared in God’s kitchen and the festive crowd watching Mama Louise at work: her parents, grandparents, sister, Emmett and Sue Coleman, Bobby Butler, Betty Ann Tuttle, John Hewitt, Nelle Adamson and, oh so very many more.
Thanks Mama Louise for gracing us with your presence and me with your love and friendship.
I miss you so.