Early this morning my grandmother passed away. Her warmth, grace and wit will be missed by those who knew her. Her capacity for love and compassion will be missed by those who were touched by her kindness and generosity. Her smile, her sly smile, will be missed by all.
All grandmothers have stories and grandchildren who will begrudgingly listen to them if there’s a chance for candy. My grandmother was no different. Except that she was different. She was MY grandmother. She was unique to me and my cousins and no one will ever know the joy of waking up early in the morning at her house, the aroma of coffee filling our noses and the soft, red carpet muffling footsteps as we made our way down a long, picture-filled hallway.
That hallway was how we kept up with our families. It was a rare event when more than one extension of the family was staying with her at any given time but I could chart the course of my cousins’ lives, the branches of my family tree that seemed to be growing much more rapidly than my own, through their school pictures. Or candid shots in the backyard of some imagined utopia or interior shots as they studied, laughed and played. I could see what my grandparents looked like when they were a little bit older than I am now and I could imagine them as real people with real lives . I could do the same for my own parents. I could get the sense that I was part of something bigger than myself. A towering oak, of which my grandmother was a strong root.
To remember her is to know love and joy. Her country twang and slow, deliberate way of speaking will forever dominate those memories. Saturday night hamburgers and Wheel of Fortune, the constant clacking of the wheel as a subconscious metronome for our time together. We are a family of board games and swimming pools and large gatherings of people over on Sundays after church for lunches beyond measure. She is our pillar and now she is gone.
I will miss my grandmother more than I can adequately state. She was a constant in a life of uncertainty, a beacon for those of us lost in ourselves.
The small tree that my grandparents planted so many years ago has become a large forest. We are strong and vibrant and our roots grow even as we speak. Their legacy will live on in our children and our children’s children and their names will echo through eternity.
1 Comment
February 6, 2008 at 10:09 pm
What an amazing tribute to family. You make me so proud to be your mother!