Remembering Grandma

Yesterday was the anniversary of my maternal grandmother's death. She died on June 28, 2007.

I can hardly believe it has been 11 years.

My grandmother took care of me when I was small, and after I went to school, she took care of me when I was sick. Since I have always been puny, I generally missed anywhere from 30-35 days of school because of bronchial issues. I must have had bronchitis and/or walking pneumonia every year.

When I was sick, Grandma let me watch TV, which was a big deal because she could get more channels than we could down in the country. At Grandma's house, I could watch The Price is Right, which I think was one of her favorites because we never missed it. I also watched Dark Shadows, which I was really too young to be watching but I absolutely loved that show. It was also during this time that I began watching The Guiding Light, a soap opera that my grandmother seldom missed. I was too young to be watching that, too, I suppose.

Grandma was very good about giving me lots of chicken noodle soup along with Granddaddy cookies when I wasn't well. (Granddaddy cookies are what we called Little Debbie Oatmeal Cookies, because my grandfather took them with him for lunch every day. I still call them Granddaddy cookies.)

If I was very sick, Grandma would sit me in her lap, wrap me in an afghan made by Aunt Susie (her sister), and sing me to sleep. She usually sang, "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage. I can't afford a carriage. But you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two." That's the one I remember the best.

Grandma also had a set of World Book Encyclopedias and she was very proud of those books. I could look at them if I wasn't too snotty or coughing a lot. I liked to sit and read them. I don't know that I've ever met another person who has said they sat and read the encyclopedia, but I loved looking at them and reading them.

I read anything I could find in the house. I read my aunt's Nancy Drew books, and a series of books that included children's novels like The Silver Skates and Five Little Peppers and How They Grew that apparently were strictly decoration because I think I'm the only person who ever read them. Grandma had a cherished set of The Little House books and I read all of those, too. Being sick wasn't necessarily fun - but since I liked to read I can't say I minded it all that much.

Grandma gave me lots of love, and I was a child who needed lots of love. I needed more love than I did discipline because I wasn't a naughty kid. Inquisitive, yes, but not naughty (my father may beg to differ, but really I was a good child). I asked lots of questions and seldom accepted pat answers. If you told me the sky was blue because God made it that way, you would get another, "why?" out of me. Yes, I was one of those children, always asking why.

My grandmother, who only had a fourth grade education, fostered my love of knowledge. She read the paper from front to back, including the advertisements, and she would read it to me. I was reading the paper without help by the time I was four and I have hardly missed a day of reading a newspaper since. A half-century of reading The Roanoke Times ought to be rewarded with something, you know? Especially when you're just a little older than a half-century yourself.

As I aged, I saw less of Grandma, and when I was old enough to stay by myself when I was sick, I did, unless I was very sick. By then my grandmother would have been in her late 40s or early 50s (she was a young mother and her youngest child is a year younger than I am - my mother was young, too) and probably a little more wary of germs. After my grandfather died when I was 12, her life changed and not for the better. She lived on Social Security because my grandfather died like 2 days before he was fully vested in his pension at Kroger, where he worked, and they refused to give my grandmother any of his pension money. For years after that, my mother and the rest of the family refused to shop at Kroger. I can't say I blame them. My grandmother's life would have been much better if they had been a bit lenient on the rules.

She lost her husband and my mother before she died, along with a sister and a brother. People handle death in different ways and of course I was a child when my grandfather left us. I never really knew how she felt about my mother's death. It had to have been painful and terribly difficult to lose your eldest child.

Some nights when I am lonesome I talk to my Grandma. She doesn't give me advice - she usually didn't do that - but she was a good listener. So I know she hears me even if I don't get a response back. I think I might have to have a good long talk with her very, very soon.

Grandma