November 2009
My Grandma, Lillian Pauline C... is a very special lady. At 82 she’s seen a lot, yet she’s so young at heart. She’s always ready to go, do, see, and enjoy. This has been a extremely rough week for her. She was sick and we thought having a stroke. After a trip to the ER it was determined she has Glioblastoma, an incurable brain cancer…WHAT?? How can my healthy little Gramma be that sick?
Grandma’s house is always clean, but always cluttered. She loves ’stuff’…old magazines she saves for ideas, clothes she bought for a good deal and plans to remake to fit her, dishes and household items. She must own 20 sets of dishes, yet she can never pass up on buying a few more.
As you go in to her meticulously neat living room to sit on her formal furniture you’re greeted with her piano that we have gathered around and sang many a song with her…”I dropped my dolly in the dirt”, “Happy Birthday”, and too many hymns to recount. She inspired each of her grandchildren to want to play, even if we never learned how.
Next we go into the kitchen where she’s always ready to feed you. It doesn’t really matter if you ate recently, at Grandma’s you must need something to snack on. She’s a great cook….banana nut bread -without the nuts for my kids… Grilled cheese sandwiches scraped back to light brown-the only thing I ever saw grandma burn. She cans pears each year, makes homemade pie crusts, wonderful potato salad, giblet gravy, and anything else she puts her mind to.
Next to the kitchen is her den, this is where she really lives. Her sewing machine is on a little homemade wooden table built by my Grandpa. Clothes hang in the doorway, ironing board ready to press new hems. Her recliner has a small maple end table with her reading glasses, magazines, nail clippers, and some outdated (ie stinky!) lotion she keeps close by. In one corner you’ll find her desk with all her paperwork, her dining table with birthday cards ready to be sent, and her record player with records about whatever topic she hopes to learn now.
Grandma is a LEARNER. She is always on the lookout for school books at thrift stores. She loves to teach the grandkids to write. She is always working on learning a foreign language. When I was little she would make me ask for my snacks in Spanish hoping that I would learn the language.
Right off the den is her back patio filled with old metal chairs that she’s owned for every one of my 35 years. They are rusty, paint peeling rockers that are made to last a lifetime. In the yard are all her garden tools and her compost pile where she faithfully dumps her scraps hoping to improve her soil. She has a little shed built by grandpa to store all her fabric and other ’stuff’ in. In the corner of the yard is her old pear tree that she picks each year to can her jalapeño pears.
Back in the house, Grandma has three bedrooms filled with fluffy beds, flannel quilts that she has made, eyelet lace trimmed pillow cases, and white bedspreads that no one would dare to sit on. She has clothes and shoes filling every closet and then some! In the back corner bedroom she keeps Granny’s dolls as a reminder of her mother who’s been gone for 13 years now.
Finally her bathroom, decorated in seafoam green and peach always has the little decorative ’shell’ shaped soaps that you don’t really use. The counter holds all her makeup, combs, and prickly curlers that she rolls her Saturday night curls on. If you looked closely you could probably find a few rag strips left over from rolling up one of her granddaughters
(or great-grands) hair with beautiful ringlet curls.
I’m sure it’s evident that I carry a fond spot for Grandma and her house. She has been such an inspiration of what a Titus 2 Woman should be. She encourages, prays, and teaches those around her. I thank the LORD that He blessed me with my Grandma C.... ***Update...it's now February 2010 and Grandma has finished Radiation and Chemotherapy. Our family is still praising God for his faithfulness in sustaining grandma's life.
