The story is about the word cattywampus (or catawampus, or maybe even caddywhompus, as I’m not even sure how it’s spelled).

Grandma Bayham didn’t just speak; she gardened with her words, planting ‘caddywhompus‘ into the soil of my childhood until it grew into the very shape of my world. To her, perfection was never the goal. If my hair was a wild nest of morning blond curls or the house was cluttered with the evidence of a garage sale or “agape” haul, it was simply ‘caddywhompus.’

Now, when I see a flat tire or a cat-tangled set of blinds, I don’t see a disaster—I see a rhythm. It is a ‘loping’ word, a camel-walk of a word that suggests that even when things are off-kilter, they are still moving forward. My husband, learning English as a second language, eventually had to learn that some things in life aren’t ‘broken’ or ‘incorrect’—they are just leaning.

Grandma taught me that the most lovable things are rarely symmetrical. They are tilted, tangled, and wonderfully cattywhompus.”