In Memory

I just want to share a few memories this week about my grandmother who passed away this past Sunday. She was 99 years young, and had lived a long and wonderful life. I have found that talking to her through the years, I was able to learn quite a bit about who I was, and maybe even why I was the person I had become. She was born and lived during a time in this country, when woman just did not do a lot of things that she was able to accomplish over the course of her long life. One of her early memories though, was losing her father to the influenza of 1918 when she was nine. This would have I think, an effect on her and her family for the rest of her life. She was raised by a loving mother who taught her a strong work ethic and also taught her how to make a living for herself. But, by the time she was in her twenties it was the great depression, so there were not many jobs to go around. This was also during prohibition as well, and she could remember seeing folks going into speakeasies to get illegal drinks. She never said she was in one of them, but now I am starting to wonder why she mentioned it. She married young like most women, only to divorce him after eight years at a time when divorces were a not very popular thing. She was to have only one child (my father) with him, knowing that having more would lead to further poverty in the middle of the depression. My grandfather did not seem to be a very good provider for her, she would say, and she ended up moving back in with her mother. She raised my Dad as a single mom when this was something also not very popular with most people. During the second world war, she would continue her pioneering ways and go on to work in a bank, not a factory. This was at a time when woman were not a very common sight in many executive type jobs. She ended up becoming an assistant vice president at that bank, and would retired after 31 years. Although she married again, she never had or wanted to depend on anyone else, for anything. She hated to burden the grand kids or any body else with anything other then maybe changing a light bulb in her house. She relished in her independence, something she must have learned from her mother. She always wore a smile on her face, and was quick with a witty comment. A trait that was passed on to my dad, and I feel down to me as well. She traveled a lot and saw most of the country from a Winnebago that she just adorned. She did this before settling down retired with her second husband in central Florida. I have many great memories of visited them at their home there. From fishing, to just getting to sleep out on the patio. She lived there until his death in 1978 and then my dad moved her up here to Atlanta. She lived by herself here, up to and around her 98th birthday, before being moved to assisted living. I was lucky she always lived closed by to me, and felt guilty if I did not visit her more often. I always enjoy talking with her about what it was like to grow up in such a different time period then me. She would at times, have a keen memory of events that had occurred so long ago that I just soaked up. She loved to read and was not a outwardly religious person, she keep her beliefs to herself and did not judge you for your own. She, like my father, never attended church regularly. When I would prod her about why she did not to seem the very religious type, she would always say something like "well, we were always to busy for that sort of stuff while growing up". She and her mother worked together making dresses during the twenties and must of also worked on Sundays as well to make ends meet. She never had a course word to say about anybody and I never once saw her lose her temper. I may have missed all of this as well, for she might have been a different person when she was younger. But, I doubt it very much. I do not think she would have lived such a long and harmonious life, without being the loving, tender, and kind person she was for the 43 years I knew her. She was already 56 when I was born. I was her fourth grand child and I was born on her birthday, November 20th. My parents decided on giving me as a middle name, her maiden name, as a sort of tribute to her. I was always kind of embarrassed by it as a kid and just wanted to have a normal sounding name like everybody else. Something to go with my very common first name. Now, I don't mind it as much, and sort of like hearing it because it is not very common name at all, especially here in the south. So in honor of grandmother, feel free to call me that name the next time you see me. It is a name I am now very proud to call myself. Only because of the type of woman she was and the life that she lived. One that influenced me more then I will ever imagine. One life that we would all hope to live ourselves. You can call me "Gridley" anytime, and I will gladly turn to you with a smile on my face. I love you grandma.