I Miss You...

    It's been over a month since I said good-bye to Grams. I am so very grateful that she is no longer suffering... but I sure do miss her. I walked into her house last night and could hardly hold back the tears. Her house has always had a distinct smell, always underlying anything that smelled really good - or really bad. I walked in and breathed in that aroma... and just missed her while I looked through some of her old jewelry in solitude. I missed her asking me all kinds of questions because "No one tells me anything!" I missed the smiles - and that little chuckle - she would always give me, as we'd talk. I miss taking my kids to see her, even if their main motive was to find the chocolate she hid around the house for them. I miss walking in to see her TV blaring the Little House on the Prairie series. 

   About a month before she passed, I emptied the voicemails in my phone because they were adding up... except one. It was from her and she only says my name, but I saved it for a couple of reasons: 1) It was the day she called me and I didn't see it until after I got the kids down for a nap... I listened to the voicemail - which, I'm not kidding - is just her saying my name once in no kind of panic or anything then hanging up... which was a typical voicemail from her. This was the day she called me again a couple of hours later and I found out she'd been on the floor for four hours! She was trying to get out of bed to start the day and never even made it to the foot of the bed. I felt terrible for her!!! Everyone was out of pocket except Alisha and I but we got there as quickly as we could and got her up. 2) It was November 8th. This means nothing to you, but is the date my grandpa (her husband) passed away in 1993. It wasn't until I was deleting the voicemails that I even realized the date. I felt I should keep it. Now I'm so glad I did. I won't keep it forever, but I'm so glad I can still hear her voice if I want to.

The following words are what I shared at her funeral. 

    There are countless memories our family could share about Grams… even just from me alone.  Before Grandpa died in 1993, our family would spend many Sunday afternoons having fried catfish at their house.  Sometimes, my sisters and I were the only ones to invade.  They had cable and would record shows like Zorro or Scarecrow & Mrs. King for us throughout the week!  After he passed, even though we didn’t fry anymore catfish, we’d still spend many Sunday afternoons there.  She’d lay down “The Sheet” and we’d watch TV and eat Cheetos to our hearts’ content.

   Grams kept us stocked up on Cheetos and French Onion Dip… and Totino’s Party Pizzas – cooked a little too thoroughly until they were “brown”, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (the spirals were my favorite), Pop Tarts and even these yummy, Snackwell’s, bite-sized Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Most of these items were special treats to us since we rarely ate such things at home… and I’m not the only one to confess that my kitchen now stays fairly stocked with many of them just because I can!!!

   For a while my sisters and I took turns staying with Grams, first nightly and then just on Saturdays.  It was during those many Saturday evenings that Grams and I became good friends.  She’d take me to rent movies, I’d go with her on a 2, 3 & 4 hour grocery shopping trips, we’d talk, we’d try to cheer each other up if one of us was down, I’d tickle her feet when she fell asleep in her chair so she’d go to bed, we’d play cards…          By the way, if you never got to experience playing cards – or any game for that matter - with her, you truly missed out!  She always had so much fun playing Crazy 8’s with us.  And WE had so much fun watching her try to shuffle the deck because it usually ended more like ’52 Card Pickup’ does.

   When we were little we spent many Easter afternoons over there.  Grams would hide eggs and we’d go find them.  I think she made a map of where to do it because we’d not only get faster every year, we realized they were always in the same spot!  The last few years she did it for us , we’d beg her to repeat the process 3-4 times because we kept finding them so quickly!

   Another tradition we had for several years was staying at her house on New Year’s Eve.  She’d always feed us black-eyed peas for “good luck”.  One New Year’s – at midnight – we even started a baseball game in her dining room!  And by baseball, I mean some wadded up pieces of paper used as a ball and an old wrapping paper roll as a bat… paper plates thrown down for bases on the floor.  She played too!  In fact, I think she had just as much – if not more – fun playing as we did!

Some things I learned about Grams over the years:

1)                  My dad’s name is not Burl but “Junior”.

2)                 There’s NEVER enough furniture, plants, or tape to properly barricade a door.

3)                 Even if all doors are barricaded, NEVER tell her she left a window open.

4)                Convincing her to read a book with a boring cover was pretty useless.  She only wanted it if it was pretty AND the story sounded just right.

5)                 Riding with Grams, you couldn’t listen to music very loud… or even audibly!  She didn’t want people thinking she was a “teenager drivin’ down the road”.

6)                Driving with Grams… Whew! Let me just put it this way: after I got my license, she’d constantly tell me: “Turn your brights on so I can see where you’re going!”

7)                 To call her a germaphobe is an understatement!  If you took her anywhere she’d have an old, cleaned-out mayonnaise jar filled with ice-cold water… and straws – individually wrapped in foil – to drink it with.  And then of course there’s no telling how much saran wrap she used on everything from silverware to picture albums!

8)                She loved babies and young children.  I learned this quickly when she and Grandpa kept Evan Clay and then again when she was teaching kindergarten.  She put everything she had into those classes and kept sharing the funny things the kids had done throughout the week whenever I saw her.  My own children didn’t come along until after she’d had a stroke and recovered from a broken hip.  She was so anxious to hold them, I kept having to remind her to sit down first.

9)                She had a child-like heart in so many ways:  The way she’d express her joy (or frustrations), the way her eyes would light up when she received gifts – especially if chocolate was involved!  Even the way she’d sing “Let’s God Fly a Kite” from Mary Poppins.  I always loved seeing her beautiful smile, her sparkling eyes, and the light on her face whenever she was excited.

10)            She could be stubborn when she really wanted to be.  On more than one occasion, she would do all she could think of – including a game of tug-of-war in the car of a parking lot – to not have to use her cane or wheelchair.  And then, of course, there was one of my favorite arguments I ever heard her get into.  It was with her cardiologist and she kept insisting that the last time she was there, she’d had an epidural… he, of course, insisted that she didn’t.

11)              Apparently, another word for poop is not a cuss word when talking about birds doing it all over her car!  It IS, however, when you remind her of the story years later and she exclaims, “I never said that!”

12)             Another regular quote from Grams:  “Well! Nobody ever told me!”

13)             Even though she didn’t like germs, she knew how to take care of me when I was sick.  Soft pallets made with layers of egg-crates to lay on, medicine as needed, a paper bag and a box of soft Kleenex, and anything that sounded good to eat.              As I grew older, I became annoyed when she’d pat me on the head like a sick puppy.  But after I learned how hard it was for her to show any sign of physical affection, I appreciated her all the more.

14)             She loved games.  From what I’ve been told, she was excellent at Dominoes, but in more recent years she’d request “Boulder-dash!”

15)             When it was time for spring or fall cleaning at her house, you could open a store with the amount of Pledge used to dust!

16)             She might not like what anyone brought to eat for dinner but by golly if there was dessert, she was going to eat it… but only “a peench”… of everything!

17)             One summer when moths were all over Poteau, she heard of a method to control the moth population… Beer!  She told us of how she had gone and purchased some, making sure to tell the store clerk: “It’s not for me… it’s for the moths!”

18)             Schedules were important to her.  Patty Clay has told me numerous times that she’s pretty sure Evan is still on the schedule Grams put him on in 1992!  And I know I will never forget having to get her medicine to her or getting her home by a certain time so she can take her “10 til’ 9 pill”.

There is so much more I can say… how after she was home-bound she’d “make-do” with so many things because she was too embarrassed to ask for more.  Or how I’d drop in to say Hi and see her pile of library books by her chair in the floor, but her Bible laid open to where she was reading.  Or even the way she stubbornly determined and pronounced that how we’ll look in heaven is “how we looked best” on earth.

     But one of the things I hope I’ll always remember:  She didn’t always know how to show it, but she loved people in her own way.  Whether it be her actually saying the words on occasion or making sure her house was spotless and decorated ‘just right’ for a guest that was coming, she loved people in the way that she understood how.