Grandma, a.k.a GeGe

Today we lost Grandma.
The phrase absence makes the heart grow fonder is true, yet fundamentally flawed. You see, if you love someone like you love family, you always miss them when they are away, but you always expect to see them again. So mere absence may not be enough to make you love someone more than you already do. However, memories of someone that’s passed, that you’ll never see again eclipse any word such as fondness.
My Grandma passed away today, February 21st, 2010. I miss her already. I missed her before, but now I grieve. As I reflect as we all do at the end of life on the memories with the loved one we’ve lost, there are smiles and sadness in abundance. I remember the macaroni and cheese that she forced me to eat before she let me get out of my chair. I remember the cornbread she taught me to cook. I remember the lessons of a hard days work. I remember her fingers, literally worked until the bones turned in different directions. I remember her laugh with her mouth full of egg salad sandwich.
If you knew Grandma, you knew that if she called you to help with something in the yard you should plan on staying overnight and being outworked. Surely, there was more to do than just a simple yard task. But the reward of good talk, good memories, and a meal like you’ve never had before was at the end of that day. And oh was it worth it. Have you ever had cream corn that will make you lick the bowl? I have. Ain’t nobody’s cookin’ like Grandmas cookin.
If you knew Grandma, you know that last sentence has her scolding me in heaven. A teacher, professionally and personally, drove Grandma to do amazing things. A basketball player and coach, she never shied from the mix of academics and physical activity. Those of my generation didn’t even know there was basketball back in “her day”, much less women’s basketball! There was, and as usual she was good at it. I remember those stories, too.
If you knew Grandma, you know that there was no such thing as can’t do. I just couldn’t get the hang of water skiing one year, but she fixed that. I believe my fingers are still pruny from all the time I spent in the water. She suited up to jump in the water with me, using the old-school life preserver that simply was a cord around your waste. We worked for days to get it down, and she was there in the water with me every time. I remember that too, though the image of your grandmother in a bathing suit at 70 years old has a tendency to burn that one in your brain.
If you knew Grandma, you knew any conversation you had you were in for the straight truth. No ifs, ands, or buts. She wasn’t known for her tact. Grandma wasn’t the person you would go see if you were feeling out of shape and needed someone to tell you you were looking great. She was, however, the person to go see for knowledge and truth. She spent a good amount of time telling people around her that they weren’t perfect. But by not being perfect, it meant there was still work to do, more to be accomplished, more to be given freely.
As much as Grandma might have “helped” others strive for perfection, she never claimed to be perfect herself. In fact those that would declare “well I’m glad your perfect” after one of her “help” sessions would receive the answer the answer I learned to expect after so many years: Nobody’s perfect. But as with the flaw with fondness, there is perfection here. Grandma was perfect. Perfect now in the memories I have, the happiness of the past and the person she was to me.
She was the perfect Grandma.

Here are the three of us being silly last Spring when she came to meet Anna. GeGe reading to Jackson

and meeting Anna