What Now

Normally, now is the time I do my weekend update.

I was going to update my weekend in pieces over a few days this time because I had a busy, exciting, fun, embarrassing, somewhat disappointing, yet totally worth it weekend to tell you all about. But I'm going to put that off for a day or two because of something that happened yesterday.

My grandmother Martin passed away yesterday morning in her sleep.

My grandmother was a wonderful woman who never, ever thought of herself. She's the one who would sit with Tommy whenever my parent's needed her, and she loved every minute of that. My cousin Scott and I used to go and spend the day with her and she'd tell us stories about the depression and about growing up poor out in the country. I have always loved to listen to her talk about the past. She had a hard life, and she gave of herself to anyone and everyone who ever needed anything. She always let me play in her jewelry box, and would always make me a huge pancake "the size of the whole pan" when I asked her for one, no matter what else she was doing. I also know I got my love of wearing big, gaudy jewelry from her, because she once told me she was like a gypsy and loved to wear beads...and she had an abundance of both in her costume jewelry bowl. She made the strongest sweet tea in the south, and she always kept half a glass of it, in the same scratched plastic cup (all my life, anyways) in the fridge in case she wanted it. She also made he best chicken and dressing in the world, and she loved the color purple. She was really a very terrfic old lady.

When Papa called me yesterday to tell me that she had died, my first reaction, after the shock and sadness, was gladness. Now, before you think I'm completely harsh for saying that, let me explain. My grandmother had been sick and sad for so long. Everyone she was close to, excluding her kids and their families, had already passed away. She was lonely for people who would never be around again. Because she was so timid, she wasn't the kind of person who would ever impose herself on anyone else, even when she wasn't an imposition at all, so she spent a lot of time alone. She had hurt herself a year or so ago, and had to use a walker to get around, and she found out a couple of weeks before her last birthday (her 84th) that she had macular degeneration and would eventually go blind. She was tired of being old and tired of being sick. I have never known anyone who looked forward going to heaven as much as she did, so my gladness isn't because she's gone, but because she's finally well and where she wanted to be.

I once described my life as a plot of land surrounded by a white, picket fence. When I was younger, the fence was whole and perfectly painted, and it kept out the bad things that tried to get in. Every picket was someone who has loved and protected me as I've grown up, or friends who I know cared for me. I've added a lot of pickets as I've gotten older, but I've lost a lot of them too. Life comes along and yanks a picket out every once in a while, by death or distance or by people who just don't care anymore, leaving a gap that just can't ever be completely filled, no matter how many new ones I hammer into place. Sometimes it seems like the holes are so huge that any dangerous thing can, and will, get in. But sometimes, even when the picket is gone, the fact that it was once there keeps me from being too afraid of what might get inside. My grandmother taught me about thinking of others before I think of myself and helping them whenever I can. She taught me to go through hardship and sadness with dignity and to remember that no matter what happens you can always lean on the people who you know love you. I'm going to miss that crazy, old woman, but she's left a lot of herself behind to help me remember that she was once one of the strongest pickets in my fence, and for that I will always be grateful.