To say she had some influence on me, is to put it lightly. She is a lot of the making of who I am. She is part of the reason for my 'ability' to speak my mind and for my ability to sugar coat when needed to make the vinegar in my jokes a little easier to take and seem a little more lady like:) She always made me laugh at the most unexpected times. She was so refreshingly out with what was on her mind. Unapologetic, like only a mother of six and grandmother and great grandmother of an army could get away with.
She was a tough lady that had seen it all. She had seen people travelling by horse and buggy to the man walking on the moon. Amazing what observations nearly a century of life will bring. She always had your number no matter what you were trying to pull. I remember her giving me $20 when I'd come home to visit from college. She called it her 'rat hole money' and told me to buy myself a Coke on the way home. She totally knew I was either spending it on clothes or beer... not necessarily in that order. But she always would give it to me with a wink.
She loved music. Elvis and Neil Diamond were among her favorites. I think this proves she had a partiality to men with dark hair... guess I got a little of that from her too... even if the one I ended up marrying doesn't have any left to account for.
She loved her soaps, sports, old movies (which weren't old to her), and concerts on tv. Mostly, I think, she got her entertainment from her family. I know she loved our visits every week when I was little. She had a fully stocked candy buffet to prove it:) It was a right of passage when you could reach the buffet yourself and showed you were ahead of the curve intellectually if you figured out how to drag the chair to reach the buffet before you were tall enough. She loved, as I got older, sharing time with my children. She was bed ridden soon after Jason and I married, but the kids were always excited to come to her. They'd crawl up in bed with her. Noelie would entertain her with her dancing and singing and talk her to sleep some times. Eli was different to her than anyone else. He would always crawl on her and hug and kiss her. For a child that doesn't speak much he always had something to say to her and would even say he loved her. When she was sleeping and he came in, he would run out telling all of us 'shhhh, Maw Maw's sleepin'. Does he pay that respect to anyone else - nope! We get yelled at "WAKE UP!"
She always looked forward to Nan showing her pictures I'd post of the kids. I would hear about it if I was being lax in my updates. She especially loved to see pictures of Eli riding his therapy horse at Inspiration Ranch. I would take and post pictures every week just knowing it put a smile on her face.
To say I will miss her is an understatement. I feel like there will be a hole in my life forever without her there but I am fortunate to recognize the parts of who I am that are her influence. So knowing that is comforting... that way she never will fully leave me. So when I come out with a direct comment or an off the cuff joke, know part of that is her. She is the last of my grandparents but I am comforted to know that she is watching over us with TJ, Elmo and Edna. A girl couldn't ask for better guardian angels.
Maw Maw, I love you. Thank you for always believing in me and encouraging me. Thanks for all of the laughter. Thanks for teaching me the beauty of sweet tea and how similar it is to syrup but can still be tea, the proper way to snap green beans, and how to be a thrifty shopper. Thanks for telling me my way too short shorts were so cute just to get a reaction out of my dad. Thanks for being the best teller of ghost stories that only a girl who grew up in a cemetery could come up with-I had the most popular slumber parties because of that. Thanks for the sage advice when leaving for Mexico on my senior trip in high school, "To be good and have fun, but if you can't be good, be careful." I promise you, I was very careful:) But I know you already knew that.
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