Monday night 11:00 PM, I have just finished a weekly meeting in the Connally Missions Center on the Hardin-Simmons campus when I get the phone call, We think your Grandmother has had a stroke, she is on her way to the hospital in Mobile, we will call you when we know more.I want to get in my car and immediately drive to Alabama but my father advises against it, his voice seemes reassuring but also concerned.
I am on my way home from the Hendrix Medical Center ER, where Ashley works. I had driven there to see her after the first call so I could update her on my Grandmother's situation. My cell phone rings again, my mother tells me they are going to take her into surgery to try to drain some of the blood in her head.
Keep praying, and we will keep you updated.At 3:00 AM I happen to glance at my cell phone and realize it is dead, I quickly plug it in bringing it back to life with chimes that alert me of voicemails and text messages, after hearing the urgency in the messages I ignore the clock and call my parent's house, my mother answers,
Hey buddy. She's not going to make it.
What,my voice sounds strange and foreign. I can't believe what I am hearing.
Tuesday at 11:50 PM is when I got the last phone call. Through my mother's tears I hear her say
She's gone.
The next two days are a blur: packing, crying, trying to get a few hours of sleep, driving to Dallas, hugging my sister, driving to Alabama, and finally the farm, the home of my grandparents, the place I have been anxious to get to but also a place I don't want to be because part of me knows that without her it will never be the same.
I don't know how to begin describing who my Grandmother was, maybe it is because for my entire life she has been there. She is part of who I am. Over the last three days we have been telling stories and laughing, remembering special times and crying, and trying to remember her for who she was to each of us. I could easily tell stories of trips to Tennessee, Pennsylvania, or Gulf Shores. I could tell about her strong will and work ethic. I could tell about Christmases, Thanksgivings, or Spring breaks I spent with her and my Grandpa at the farm. There will be a right time and place to tell each of those stories, but now, I want to share the story of November 27th, 2009.
The entire family had made the trip to Alabama for Thanksgiving. The day after Thanksgiving was the Iron Bowl, the annual football game played between state rivals Alabama and Auburn, and somehow I had managed to score a ticket. The game was great, I enjoyed seeing my first Iron Bowl, as well as seeing Alabama play the year they won a national championship. The only down side to the trip was that while I was in Auburn waiting for kick-off I had missed my favorite breakfast, biscuits and sausage gravy. I don't think that my Grandmother ever cooked something I didn't like, well maybe turnip greens, and the only reason for that is that I don't like turnip greens, but out of everything she cooked biscuits and gravy were my favorite. When I returned after the game and discovered I had missed my favorite breakfast I was disappointed but was promised I would get biscuits and gravy on my next visit, I never would.
My Grandmother was a great cook, I know it may seem to cliche to remember my Grandmother as such a good cook but the truth is that it isn't the end product that made her so great. Though the food itself was always good, it was the love and thought behind the food that made what she did special. In the conversations over the past three days more than once I have heard this from more than one person:
I don't know how she did it, but in a house full of people she always managed not only to take care of everyone, and be the perfect hostess, but she always cooked everyone's favorite foods.It's true, I can't remember ever visiting my Grandmother's house where I missed out on my favorite meals. The fact that she could take care of a house full of people, cook every meal, and manage to know and fit in everyone's favorites is no small task, but it was a task full of love.
Wednesday night after traveling through four states and finally arriving at the farm, we were all emotional, but the thought I cant get out of my mind is that if I didn't go to a stupid football game I could have had her cooking, my favorite, one more time. At night it is good just to be together as a family, but it feels strange, as though Grandmother is in the other room setting up bedding and should pop her head it at any moment, but she never does. At the end of the night my parents, Ashley and I are the only ones awake, everyone else has given their hugs, wiped away tears, said their goodnights, and had gone to bed. My mother offers me a piece of chocolate cake,
It's the last cake your Grandmother made, and it is the last piece,reluctantly I accepted the cake. After sacrificing a few bites to my wife, I enjoyed the last piece of the last chocolate cake that my Grandmother ever made. It wasn't biscuits and gravy but it was something that she had cooked with love, and she might not of been thinking of me when she cooked it but I felt her love all the same.