Showing posts with label memories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memories. Show all posts

Monday, March 21, 2016

Remembering...

 I remember when I was little, your house was my favorite place to be. I was your cherished granddaughter. As I grew, we were so close that Pawpaw called me your third daughter. Mom, you and I went everywhere together. We shared a rare three generational closeness that many don't have the luxury of experiencing. A bond my daughter will never know. 

One of
my oldest memories is of you and Pawpaw returning from a motorcycle trip and bringing me a blow up chair and my favorite teddy bear in all the world, Jellybean. Who now belongs to my daughter.

I remember waking up to the smell of Gunnoe's sausage and biscuits on the mornings after nights spent at your house. 

I remember you teaching me how to make your peculiar pineapple, lettuce, cheddar cheese and miracle whip salads to accompany your homemade spaghetti. I was so excited when you taught me how to make them, and you made me feel so trustworthy when the salads were entrusted to my hands. You told me they were perfect, even though they were
Not as pretty as yours.

You always made me feel beautiful, and so loved. You showed me an excellent example of a hard working, godly woman, who cherished her God and family
before all else.
 
You showed me how to be a tireless worker bee as well as a leader. You were always there at all of my youth group functions, serving as an advisor and in the kitchen. You worked tirelessly for me and all of the girls. 

I remember you in the audience at each and every band concert, dance recital, and rainbow meeting, always cheering me on.

I remember calling you while I was in college and asking you for your hot dog chili recipe, and learning that the mainingredient  was love. 

I remember writing an essay in the seventh grade about my hero. It was about you. You were so proud of that essay!

I remember being at the hospital with you and the family when Pawpaw died, and the hours spent caring for him in the years and days before his hospitalization and eventual death. 

I remember in the days after his passing, writing out all the thank you cards for you to all the lovely people who provided cards, gifts and food after he passed. I remember the discussion about how you felt that it was not appropriate to wear your wedding rings anymore because you were not married and didn't feel that it was right.

I remember serving in the women's social service organization with you and mom, dad and grandpa, it was a family
affair. I cannot stomach the thought of going back with out you all there. Only Dad and I are left.

I remember the pictures in my baby book of you holding me for the first time, and of you holding my daughter for the first time. 

I remember you and mom babysitting and helping to raise my daughter for the first few years of her life.

I remember the way you smell. I could never forget.

I remember the way that your arms felt around me. I remember the way you always kissed me on the lips, and how dainty your lips always seemed to me.

I remember the way you always tucked
Me in at night when I spent
The night at your house.

I remember that you were the only other person in the world who felt my mother's death as deeply as I did. One of our three had died. I miss being able to talk to you about her.

I miss the last person on earth that could tell me stories of my life. And of my mother's.

I miss the times that you would visit, after you moved in out of state with your youngest daughter. I miss our days spent shopping, having slumber parties, girl time, playing babies, picking up my daughter from school, and lunching with all of your girlfriends.

I miss being able
to call you on the phone. I miss phone calls on my birthday. I miss being able to cry to you about losing my mother. I miss the last direct link to my maternal lineage.  I miss your laughter, and your silliness. I miss your green eyes. 

I look down at my finger everyday and I miss the hand that your wedding and anniversary rings belong on. 

I miss holding hands while walking through the mall with you until just a couple of years ago.

I miss your never ending smile, your eternal happiness, and the way your eyes would light up when I entered a room. 

I miss seeing the joy on your face that my daughter brought you. The last baby that you helped raise.

I miss and love you Nana! 

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Mrs. O'Hara, Puking, Momma's Bible, Towels, and 3000

 I am PMS'ing.  I have only PMS'd two to three times in the last year.  As to why, well you need to read A Scrape, A Burn, 6 incisions, 4 units of blood, and a Little Heart Shaped Surprise .  So  we are in the process of moving.  Well, sort of.  There's a catch you see, we actually haven't started.  Moving that is.  I started.  And it sucks.  After having gone all but one month in the last eight, without the womanly curse, Mrs. O'Hara if you please, she is so not welcome back.  Especially now, when I need to be busting my booty putting away all the Christmas everything, and then packing to move.  By the end of the month.  Mrs. O'Hara came to visit the day before yesterday while mini-vacationing at my dad's house in WV.  The visit was planned, but I extended it a couple of days, to avoid the inevitable packing and moving.  Ugh.  My hubbie came up to spend the night with myself and the 4yo at my daddy's.  It's like after having been apart for five days, my one remaining ovary, which is no longer connected to anything, said, "whoa, hold up, I can still party like a rockstar!  I smell the hub testosterone!  I smeeeeellllllll it!"  Creak, groan, pinch, cramp, smoke emitting forth out of the hoochie girl, and whamm-o, it's kicking again.  I'll be damned.  Everytime I mention being gloriously rid of Mrs. O'Hara, bam!  It's like she hears me!  She says," Oh no my dearie, your not done yet!  You thought you were done? Oh sorry! HATE to be an inconvenience(insert wicked grin and evil laugh here)!" So while I don't feel like doing anything but laying in bed, I have been running errands.  For the last six days. Ugh.  And I have been a little sensitive. I am sure my MIL is reading this going,"you call that sensitive?"  Sorry MIL, love you!
 
 So anyway, while at the father's, we had a 4yo puking incident.  As soon as we fell asleep.  I woke up to a cough.  Not just any cough, THE cough.  The one that means, here it comes, the big one!  And it was one of those lovely ginormous ones.  The kind where the child's dinner was not digested.  Yup big ol' non digested cheese globs.  Yummy.  All over the sheets, the comforter ,pink and white jammies, four pillows, three blankets, two afghans, and all over the brand new pink pillow pet. ( Feel free to sing along to the tune of the Twelve Days of Christmas!) So needless to say, Dad and I did not get any sleep that night!  We were up washing everything off and out in the sinks, and the dreaded stench of the inside of my child's stomach invaded my nostrils and stayed there. Ugh.
 
 So the rest of the night, I am reliving washing the puke out of my child's clothes. No sleep for dear old mom.  Every time she coughed or made a noise, I was right there, under her face with a peach trash can.  I did not want puke all over, well... everywhere again.  Plus we were running out of blankets! I decided to go through my mother's books, while I was on yak detail.  My mother's bookshelf is right beside her bed.  She passed away a year ago to the day on Thanksgiving Day, of last year. My mother had a habit of putting tissues to mark her page in a book, when she was out of bookmarks.  So I decided I was ready to look at the last things my mother had been reading.  Several books were about love, several about health, some she had started and never finished, and there were many containing poetry and verse, which she loved.  And then there was her green bible.  I opened her bible, curious as to what I might find.  I found all of the usual things, obituaries of long gone relatives, programs from wakes past, and my grandfather's funeral program.  Then as I was flipping through to where the pages fell open, the book fell open to the twenty second and twenty third Psalm.

  There was a blood stain on the left hand side, where the twenty second Psalm was located.   There was an elongated strip of dried blood starting at the top, and one single dot at the bottom.  Tears just started silently falling from my eyes.  I knew my mother had been here and read these pages before she died.  I later discussed it with my dad, and we decided she had probably been reading her bible one day, ad had a nose bleed.  I cannot describe the feeling I had had as I read the words that my mother had been reading.  I knew instantly what she was feeling.  Here is an excerpt from that page;
The Holy Bible: King James Version. 2000.
The Psalms
22

A Cry of Anguish and Song of Praise
To the chief Musician upon Ai'jeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David.
1 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Mt. 27.46 · Mk. 15.34

 
Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
2 O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not;