The obituary was just a few paragraphs long. Her whole life summed up in just a few words. Where she was born, who her parents were, who she married and her children's names, and a list of her survivors. So much and yet so little of who my grandmother really was.
She was born in a small township in rural Arkansas. Her family was poor and she spent much of her childhood picking beans and cotton. When she was only seventeen she married my grandfather and they began their lives together. She had the first three of her four children at home, my father being the third, born on Christmas day, in 1944.
When my Dad was just seven or eight years old they decided to move their family to Texas. They moved to a small house on a small street in Fort Worth, and she got a job working for Dickie's as a seamstress. My grandfather, who had heart trouble and could not do strenuous labor would sometimes go from door to door in search of odd jobs to take care of his family. My grandparents were never rich but there never seemed to be any lack. They had a large garden in the back yard.There was always
plenty to eat and my grandmother, being an excellent seamstress made all her own clothes, and some of ours, when we were growing up. When my grandfather died in 1976 she continued to work at Dickie's and during the summer months she made her home welcome to all of her grand kids. My sisters and I would visit for a week or so every summer and she became friend and ally. In my younger years she was admonisher (Julie Anne, you need to get a hold of that temper of yours!), teacher as she taught me how to cook creamed corn, gravy and iced tea, and finally as I entered my turbulent early teen years, confidant, as I confided to her all of the things that were happening at home. She never criticized, she just listened, knowing that was what I needed at the time. She never wasted an opportunity to take us to church with her. All of those summers we would visit Mrs. Henry's Sunday school class and listen to Bro. Henry preach. In those summer evenings we would sit out at dusk on the patio listening to the frogs and talking or chasing fireflies. Then there was always Christmas and Thanksgiving with everyone gathered around the big table for turkey or ham and all the trimmings fresh from her garden and lots of presents under the tree.
In my childlike way I never wondered what she did when we went home. Her house was always so full of noise and laughter and crying and fighting between siblings. When we left it must have been so quiet. What did she do with her time? I knew she gardened and I knew she sewed and quilted and cooked. I knew she visited the sick with food. It never occurred to me that she might be lonely until she remarried in the fall of 1989.
It wasn't too long after that that I married and moved away and became fully involved with raising my own family. She would send me a letter every once in a while and I received a quilt for my each of my children as they were born.
When I would come home to Texas I would take my babies over to visit her and her
new husband. She would always welcome me with open arms. Then I would go home and not think about her much, as engrossed as I was in my own life.
Shortly after her second husband died it was decided that she needed to live with my aunt for her own safety. Her mind had begun slipping and she had to be watched all the time. Not too much later it became too much for my aunt to take care of her and work full time as well. She had to be closely monitored, as she was a danger to herself when left alone and so she had to move to a home for people with Alzheimer's.
By this time she didn't know who we were anymore. It broke my heart every time I visited to see her struggle to remember. You could see it on her face. She would look at you with puzzlement and say "I know you". Then even that was gone.
Several years passed and she slipped further and further away from us.
She regressed finally to the point that she slept most of the time. Then I got the call that she probably wouldn't make it through the week.
I was torn. I didn't want her to pass away, for obviously selfish reasons, and yet I wished she could be released from her suffering. My sister, who was visiting me,
and I talked about it frequently, and discussed whether we should go down to visit. Since she had no one to watch her young boys, we decided against it. She went to Houston with the boys to see my dad, and I, having kids in school, stayed home.
I lay down to take a nap the afternoon after she left. I awoke after just an hour of restless sleep and went to the computer to check my updates on Facebook. The first thing I saw was a status update by my cousin. It said "Today at 1:30 my paternal grandmother passed away". For a moment I panicked, and then I realized it must be his other grandmother. I thought "how strange it must be to have two grandmothers dying at the same time". Funny how your mind plays tricks on you like that in times of stress. I read it about three times before it sank it that it WAS my grandmother he was referring to.
I thought knowing it was coming would take the sting out of the event, but that was not so. I was racked with grief and my hands started shaking. I immediately picked up the phone. I knew by the tone in my stepmom's voice that she didn't know yet. I gave her the news and then asked to speak to my sister. Heather came to the phone. She said she had been sleeping. When I told her Mamaw had died about thirty minutes ago, she said "Wow, that is SO weird. I was dreaming about Mamaw, I dreamed she was flying away."
I had only been a couple of funerals and never a viewing before so I didn't know what to expect. I was really apprehensive about this. I came to the funeral home and saw the casket displayed in the other room. It all became very real then. I hadn't seen her in a couple of years, I knew the last time my sister had seen her she was really suffering and looked very bad. I told my dad I didn't know if I could handle this. I didn't object, then, as he and my stepmother took my hands, one on each side and walked me up to the casket. This forty two year old woman felt like a little girl as we approached her, very small and afraid. Then I looked upon my grandmother's body and all my apprehension fled away and there was only peace. She looked simply as if she was sleeping. She was posed exactly as she would have been for an afternoon nap, hands at rest over her lap. She had never appeared more beautiful to me. All of the suffering was gone from her face. It was as if the pain of the last ten years had been erased.
As I sat in the pew the next day at the funeral I looked around at all the people sharing their grief with me. My dad, my uncles, my aunts, and all my cousins were there. All of my sisters were there. There was not one missing. I was amazed at the passage of time. The cousins I spent time with at my grandmother's house were all older, some with graying or bald heads, some with young children. All soberly dressed in their dark suits and black dresses and openly mourning the loss of our grandmother.
Brother Henry conducted the service for my grandmother. He spoke about having met her and my grandfather fifty years previously. He said He had only been twenty years old when they moved to TX in 1957. His wife had only been seventeen. My grandparents were almost the first people he met when he took the pastorate. He said my grandmother had taken his wife under her wing and taught her how to cook. He said she was always ready with food or whatever was needed when something came up or somebody was in a crisis.
He told me later that my grandmother used to come and clean the church in earlier days.
I was impressed to learn all this about my grandmother. You think you know everything about a person and then find that you know really nothing after all. After she passed away I realized how little I really knew about her. What was her favorite color, what was her favorite food. She had never been forthcoming about her life before TX and I had never asked, but now I wished I knew more.
I think about her about a hundred times a day. Standing at my sink and staring out the window I find the tears escaping my eyes. She was a good lady. She might be pleased to know that in her granddaughter's eyes she was the perfect grandmother.
