A Tribute to My Grandmother

For the past month, I have been grieving privately for my grandmother who passed away in April. I feel extremely blessed because she played such an active part in my life. There is literally no part of my past that I can look back on without memories of her. What a blessing and a comfort this has been to me in the past few weeks! I have hundreds of pictures, and the stories I pass down to Grace and Clark are treasures of their past.

My grandmother had two children, five granddaughters, and twelve great-grandchildren. Her family was spread as far north as North Dakota, as far east as the Carolinas and Florida, and as far south as the Texas coast. Though we might have been physically closer, my grandmother did not let time or distance keep her from having a special relationship with each member of her family. She purposefully chose particular activities and hobbies to share with each of us. She called us on the phone, visited with us when possible, and never missed sending us a card for any occasion. As my cousin reflected, Grandmother was never too busy for us. She had time to go eat, go shopping, travel, go to the movies, or participate in whatever adventure we invited her to go along on. I can never remember a cross word spoken between us. She was always on my side, supporting me. There were occasions when she listened because I had no one else I could talk to.

I never realized how much I would miss my grandmother.

I am thankful that I was allotted a few moments of time at her funeral to express my thoughts about her and about our relationship. Below I have included most of the eulogy that I wrote for her. I hope that after reading it and seeing some of the pictures that I have included, you will feel like you too have known and now lost someone special.

First of all, I want to thank each of you for being here today as we celebrate and commemorate the life of my grandmother. We want to take this time to pay her our ultimate respect and to honor her memory. Thank you for the prayers you have offered for Grandmother and now for our family during this time. It has been God’s strength alone that has sustained us. We could feel His presence and saw signs of His Sovereignty throughout this process, and we acknowledge that none of it was apart from His will. And finally, I want to thank Dad and Mom and Aunt Judy for being there for her, making the tough decisions, and, at the end, fighting for the care she deserved and simply not leaving her alone.

When I go back to my earliest memories, I think about how we visited Grandmother and Treat [her husband] at their house. Sometimes, we would go over for the evening, sometimes we might stay overnight. We also traveled with them. We all enjoyed going down to the coast for a few days. Grandmother loved to fish, and when we went fishing, we always stayed out late, knowing that at any time we could catch the big one.

Another place that we visited with them was Canton. Grandmother and Treat would go down there early and set up their motor home. We would come out a little later, and we kids would get to spend the night with them in the RV. Then we would spend the next couple of days shopping. Marijke [my sister] and Grandmother especially liked to shop together, hitting all the good places like Jake with his antiques and also stopping for homemade peach ice cream from Taylor’s.

Since Grandmother and Treat went to church with us, she would often invite us over after church for lunch. I remember Sunday hams and sometimes a roast or meatloaf, but I think there was always ice cream in the freezer for dessert. Even up to the end of her life, Grandmother considered the main dish really just a prelude to the dessert.

As we all got older, Grandmother started spending more one-on-one time with each of us. She made us all feel special in an individual way, creating with each of us a unique relationship with her. When Macileigh [my sister] was in high school, she would sometimes go up to Grandmother’s to visit her for the weekend. They would stay up late watching I Love Lucy reruns and eating Blue Bell peaches ‘n’ cream ice cream. When I was graduating from high school, Grandmother bought me a laundry basket filled with towels and all sorts of necessities for life in a dorm. When I later moved from the dorm to my first apartment, she helped me furnish it with a table and chairs, coffee table and end table, and new dishes. When I was about to graduate from college, she took me shopping for a dress to wear for graduation and for job interviews. When I was married, she wanted me to share her love of decorating for the seasons and holidays. I think fall was her favorite time of year because it seemed she always decorated more for that season than any other. Once, she showed up at my workplace with her van full of fall decorations for our home…artificial plants, fall foliage, a scarecrow. Other things we did together included shopping at Cold Water Creek and going to the movies together. After Grace was born, she and I would go up to visit Grandmother and spend the day together. Grandmother was very matter-of-fact in the things she said and did. I remember when Monroe and Grace and I took Grandmother to dinner one night, and we told her that we were expecting Clark. She said, “Well, that’s what you said you wanted.” Our family loved to take Grandmother to the Purple Cow restaurant. She may have liked the hamburgers there, but she especially loved the purple-colored Blue Bell vanilla ice cream.

One of the best days that we spent with Grandmother came one summer when we had a garden, and we had a bumper crop of black-eyed peas. I bagged them up and took them to Grandmother’s house where Grace and Grandmother and I sat around the table, shelling peas, and sharing stories. Grandmother shared a lot of stories about her past and didn’t mind when I asked her questions about certain events. She would laugh and call me “honey”, and I could talk to her about some things that I could not talk to others about. Once she was telling me about a friend of hers who had deeply hurt her feelings, and when she shared with me, she did not try to hide her tears. She taught me that a heart is never too old to love.

Other things that we all remember about Grandmother were that she always had her fingernails painted, she read the newspaper every day, and she loved listening to Willie Nelson. She loved to plant flowers and to watch them grow. Grace said that she learned some of her love for dolls by seeing Grandmother and the love she had for her "babies". Grandmother was a thoughtful person doing things like sending cards to her friends and family for all sorts of occasions and bringing us food after both Grace and Clark were born. Another example of her thoughtfulness came to our family almost nine years ago after we unexpectedly lost Monroe’s dad. Grandmother bought a tree in his honor for us to plant in our backyard. Grandmother also had a hospitable heart. Her home was open for all of us to enjoy, and we were always welcome at any time. We were never an inconvenience to her. She was glad to have us there. There are few people anymore who have the gift of hospitality like she did.

When Grandmother’s health really started to decline in the past couple of years, it was sometimes hard to go see her. She didn’t always recognize us, but she knew we belonged with her. It was so hard to see Grandmother these last few weeks because she was so different than she had been when she was healthy. The person confined to the wheelchair and then to the bed was not really my grandmother. My grandmother was the active one whose mind and body were fully aware of life. She was a hard-working woman who did not mind if she needed to get her hands dirty.

The verses from Proverbs 31 accurately describe my grandmother. “She was clothed with strength and dignity, she laughed at the days to come, she spoke with wisdom, faithful instruction was on her tongue, she did not eat the bread of idleness, Her children arise and call her blessed, Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her the reward she has earned, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate." [my paraphrase]

All the great-grandchildren loved Grandmother and loved going to visit her. She brought us much joy in her life and now in the memories she has left us with. In the past few days, we have laughed and cried and had no end to our reminiscing. I challenge my sisters and cousins that we keep her memory alive by sharing her stories and remembering what she taught us about life and loving. In this way her legacy will live on.

The old song “When We All Get to Heaven” means more for me now. I saw the look of peace on her face as Grandmother traded this world for her heavenly home. This is a peace that transcends all understanding.

We love you, Grandmother, and we will see you again.

#grandmother