remembering grandma

I've been thinking about my grandma and the things we did together all day. I've cried and laughed remembering special moments. She passed away from cancer last night around 9:30 EST. She was taken to the hospital on Friday evening after she had called my aunt complaining about what had been served to her for dinner. My aunt told her to go down to the kitchen and ask for something else. Then she had gone outside to the porch with some of her lady friends. Shortly after that someone found her slumped over in her chair; she was unresponsive and never regained consciousness.

It's kind of funny in a way that her last phone call would be to complain about something. My grandma was just that way. If something bothered her, you knew it. And just to make sure you knew it, she might even throw a pan. Just to make a point. She never masked her emotions or bottled up her feelings. She also let you know that she loved you. Hugs were abundant and so were kisses. You got them both when you arrived and both when you left. For years and years she kept a calendar with everyone's birthdays filled in and sent out cards with $5 to each of us.

Grandma and I baked a lot. I remember the first time we made cream puffs together in the kitchen of the old farmhouse. I made them with her a couple of times, and haven't made them since, but everytime I see cream puffs in the frozen food section at the grocery store, I think of her.

And it's kind of funny that we baked a lot because it seems that both of us were always on a quest to lose weight. She was a member of TOPS (Taking Off the Pounds Sensibly) for a long time. But not once do I ever remember her calling it TOPS. It was always "Fat Club." She'd say, "If you come over before such and such a time, I won't be home, I'll be down at Fat Club." One of her favorite things to talk about was the secret sister stuff she'd get down at Fat Club. And it seems like there was always some potluck going on down at Fat Club. Grandpa would get such a big kick out of that.

She introduced me to yogurt and cooked liver for dinner once, and when I asked her what was wrong with the meat because I thought it tasted funny, she told us it was steak. She would take her sister Elnora and I on day trips up to Lake Erie. Sunday nights after church were for Grandma's tuna fish sandwiches and Grandpa's ice cream stash. I can remember her coming to my piano recitals (which were at the church right down the road from her house) and to my band concerts. We went to the flea market and garage sales and I helped her run her yard sales in the summer. It seems she was always on the lookout for a new purse that wasn't too small or a blouse that didn't rub up on her neck. She ordered from Blaire and Avon. She wore lipstick and White Shoulders perfume. And for as long as I can remember she had a head of short silvery hair and never once had to shave her legs. In her younger years she had cut one of her fingers on a glass and it was permanently bent at the first knuckle. She'd let me try to straighten it out, even though it wouldn't. She had been best friends with her best friend since the first grade. She loved sitting on the porch swing, drinking sun tea, and watching for the hummingbirds. She always had a stash of house plants that she occasionally watered with coffee and tons of magazines lying around and she made really good gravy. Whenever anybody in the family made the newspaper, you would expect to find it hanging on the refrigerator door the next time you were over.

She liked to sew and make pillows. She taught me how to embroider and do candlewicking. She ordered me a little kit from one of her magazines and helped me learn to cross-stitch. For years, hanging in her kitchen, she had a little red-framed strawberry moose that I had cross-stitched for her.

She and my grandpa were charter members of the church where I grew up. Practically every time I was in church, so was she. She sang in the choir and sang solos and I always think about her when I hear the song In the Garden. She loved singing that old hymn.

I also think about her every time I hear the song You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me Lucille. Her name was Lucille and she HATED that song. I remember her yelling at people a few times to be quiet and stop singing that to her. She was a fan of big band music as well as southern gospel, but definitely not Amy Grant. On one visit a while back, she was ranting and raving about Amy Grant singing the devil's music. I decided I'd better not ask her what she thought about Michael W. Smith.

She was an avid reader of The Daily Bread. On more than one occasion, she tore pages out for me to read. She also talked all the time about it being the last days, and that the world was just a big mess, and that soon Jesus was going to come back so people had better get ready. She ordered books and tapes about the rapture and would share them with people. Now she'll just get to watch it all take place from up there, 'cause I'm sure she'll have a really good seat.

One of my favorite things was her nickname for me. She called me Wen-dee-a. I've had a lot of nicknames over the years, but that one has always been my favorite. I remember walking into her room when we were home this past Christmas and I said, "Hey Grandma!" And she said, "Well, look who's here, it's Wen-dee-a and Phil!" My heart was instantly warmed to hear her name for me and Phil, who she never really got to know all that well.

She used to tell people that I met Phil on the TV. For some reason she got the TV confused with the internet. I don't think it really made all that much sense to her, but she welcomed him into the family with open arms, just as long as he promised to take care of me.

I have a really neat picture from our wedding reception of her and grandpa waving the sparklers around. Their faces are blurred, but you can tell it's them. (Our scanner isn't working, or else you'd be looking at it right now.) All day today I kept thinking that, when she left us, she met Grandpa up there, and he was waiting for her with a sparkler, welcoming her on in and showing her around.

An hour after Dad called to tell me she was gone, I looked at the clock and thought, "Hmmm. . .I wonder what her first hour in heaven's been like? Who has she been able to see? I wonder how she likes walking without pain in her new cancer-free body on streets of gold?" I'm so thankful my Grandma knew Jesus.

I love you, Grandma. I'm so glad that you were a wonderful part of my life for 35 years and that I have made memories with you that will last forever.
Love,
Wen-dee-a