So much has happened over the 4+ months since I last blogged. I won't try to capture all of it, but I do want to share that my dear grandma passed away. Despite growing up about 1500 miles away from her home in East Texas, I was very fortunate to have spent significant amounts of my childhood and adulthood with her and my granddaddy (thank you, parents, for making this a priority even when money was tight!).
My sister and I were going to give separate eulogies at her funeral back in July, but unfortunately the priest, said there was only time for one of us. Mine was a bit shorter than Kim's and had combined thoughts from other family members, so Kim graciously let me speak. Kim was going to share a version of this wonderful tribute she wrote to my grandma, which really captures our childhood time in East Texas.
I scratched out the eulogy on a notepad that's been sitting on the kitchen hutch and has since been scribbled over by the kids, so I figured I should write it down here so that I can keep it for posterity's sake (this is just an approximation since I just jotted down a few notes).
I started off the eulogy by explaining that family members had emailed my sister and I with some of their thoughts and memories of my grandma. I reflected on those and also my own experiences and felt really inadequate as a mother, wife, and member of society. When people die, it's pretty routine to lionize them and then carry on with our lives, but I really wanted to ponder what was so special about Grandma and use it to help me figure out how to better live my own life.
So I made a list. For myself and for everyone sitting in the church (and now for readers of this blog). I think Grandma would have appreciated a list!
5 Things to Remember About Mary Alice
#1: She had a grand sense of adventure.
--Most people wouldn't have thought it was particularly special to live near Rusk State Mental Hospital, but this location was a source of endless adventure for my grandma. When my aunt Kay worked there in high school, Grandma delighted in inviting residents over for lunch, including some who had criminal records. She also loved pretending to get lost in the East Texas woods just as she told us about an escaped resident that was last seen right in that vicinity. She enjoyed scaring the heck out of her kids and grandkids and could be very theatrical.
--When Grandma was 73 years old, she visited me in rural China. Talk about a foreign experience! But she stayed in my Peace Corps town, rode all the buses (some with chickens) and the trains, and gladly tried all kinds of new foods. She was a delight to host. Then she returned to her East Texas town and told everyone who would listen about what nice people those Chinese are! I imagine she got some funny looks.
#2: Grandma loved and appreciated everyone's story.
--Whether it was a resident at Rusk State Mental Hospital or someone she'd just met, she wanted to know and understand people's stories. And she always saw the best in people.
--In the history of the world, I'm not sure anyone has ever derived more pleasure from people-watching or eavesdropping than my grandma. I know that eavesdropping has kind of a negative connotation (and I'm sure she would object to me using that word), but Grandma was really just trying to understand people. In a restaurant, she was even known to shush her dining companion so that she could lean her chair back a little bit and hear a particular interesting tidbit from a stranger.
--Grandma visited me and my sister in San Francisco right before the start of the Iraq war in 2003 and we took her to a huge anti-war protest with about 100,000 people in the streets. Holy moly, did she love that. I'm not real sure what her stance on the war was, but she could appreciate an interesting spectacle more than most. The streets of San Francisco were filled with music, protesters, and crazy characters -- just a tad different than her average weekend in Texas. The trains were so crowded that my sister and I would yell out, "Excuse me, old lady coming through! Old lady coming through!" and just push our way in until we found her a seat. She thought that was hilarious.
#3: She was one of the hardest-working people you'll ever meet.
--My aunt Kay said in an email that my grandma "valued industry," which is quite an understatement! She was raised on a dairy farm in East Texas and begged her dad to let her milk the cows like her brothers. He soon relented, and then she was on the hook for all the hard work, not to mention waking up very early every single morning. But she didn't regret it -- her nickname was "Boots" because she was a tomboy who loved wearing boots and riding horses.
--Grandma raised six kids, kept an incredibly tidy home (some might say obsessively clean!), and never complained about a thing. I know that's the sort of thing you say after someone dies to make them seem like an angel, but I'm not exaggerating -- it's been verified by her kids! One of her kids' strongest memories was about how Grandma told them that there's always someone who has it worse than you do.
--Grandma had that Great Depression work ethic of "Waste not, want not." In junior high I fancied myself a big environmentalist and even had a Greenpeace sweatshirt about saving the whales. Then I remember watching her washing her used tinfoil and re-folding it so that she could use it again. I realized that, in so many ways, I could learn a lot about not being wasteful from this East Texas lady who didn't have much in common with those Greenpeace protesters.
#4: She took joy in the simple things.
--One of the things that kept surfacing in the emails I received from family is how good Grandma was at living in the moment. I used to be much better about this, but since I know have more responsibilities, I've noticed I'm not very good at this anymore. But that never stopped Grandma!
--Grandma loved listening to the radio, whether that was country music or a call-in radio show like Let's Talk (listening with her to all the oddball stuff that people tried to sell on the radio is one of my favorite memories). Grandma also loved a good burger more than anyone I know. She loved long drives on country roads. She loved Blue Bell ice cream (though she never really owned up to this one -- she'd always say she bought it for someone else!). And Grandma loved a good case of the giggles. I wonder when the last time was that I had tears streaming down my face because I had the giggles so bad...
#5: Grandma was a selfless woman.
--My aunt Kay shared a story about how she didn't have a dress to wear to a dance in high school and how Grandma stayed up late at night making her a beautiful dress that was nicer than all the other store-bought dresses the other girls wore. And how Grandma was so happy to give that gift.
--When a neighbor was suffering from an alcohol problem, Grandma took care of her newborn baby for six months while the woman recovered. This in addition to all the kids she had of her own. Can you imagine that kind of love and generosity?
So there you have it. Those are the five things I want to always remember about my grandma. Reflecting on just what made my grandma so special makes me feel closer to her. And makes me want to emulate her.
Hope you learned a thing or two from Mary Alice's life.
