Cook pot, hot?

What a humbling experience for me to go from the microscopic view of my family to the telescopic view of "Walkerdom". I do remember the liberty to sit next to my mother-in-law and ask and ask how do you...? She never told me anything in a language style which I could understand. She engaged me in conversation, but she never told me what she did. I was disappointed, most times; even after being with her for years.
I didn't speak the language of Walker, at all. I had no idea that there was such a thing as non-verbal instruction.
I was from a very "Literal" tradition. Words were taken apart and dissected and argued the meaning of and instruction was gained through that means alone.
I sat next to this, my most esteemed mother-in-law and expected to imbibe from her everything that would make me a "suitable helper" to this man I had married that was really in love with her.
It was comfortable for me to play the other woman to Mom. I loved the way that none of the other sister-in-laws seemed to know who was the only love in these boys lives. "One day, I want my boys to be like that to me," I thought.
Mother-in-law what is the secret of your great strength? It must be in the cook pot, I thought. Teach me to cook, please? Tell me(and I meant verbally) how do you command the attention and constant thought of these 10 men. I had truly never seen any power like that, in real life. Part of the reason was that she had been very sick and wouldn't be with us much longer. The years of kidney dialysis were getting to her and the boys knew it, so they doted on her all the more, in their own sweet little ways.
She went on to give me the hand measurement of a bag of flour and mixing the buttermilk or clabba. I had to have a translator translate many of the words and terminologies for things that I had never heard of before. Mother-in-law, what is a clabba, how do you measure a pinch, how big is a handful of baking soda. I was frustrated and there was no one there to help me, get it.
I had to catch her when all of the boys were around and watch what she did then and memorize it.
One of the holidays, when the entire family were together for breakfast and Mom was making my husband's favorite grits and redeye gravy: I got brave enough to learn from Mom by bogarting myself right next to her,despite being quite a low woman on the totumpole. (by this time I had a child already and considered myself fairly competent at gaining the attention of my husband with a hearty breakfast) Redeye gravy was this elusive component of the fully equipping breakfast,which I had brushed it off long enough. I had argued with myself that it was probably something of a dinosaur that was better left in the old "ish" and not to be passed to the next generation because I was certainly not going to get this from Mom(my mother-in-law). I said to myself this is probably another of those pork flavored concoctions that are adding to our human demise; still, if I am going to poison the next generation with my concoctions, I'd better get this one under my belt, was my thought. I sat next to her and said, "Please, may I watch you make the redeye gravy?" They all stuck their fingers down their throats at my formal approach to family care. rightly so. I didn't know how else to say it, though.