Memories of Granny

My grandmother, who I have always called Granny passed away yesterday morning a little past midnight.  Accordingly, I flew in yesterday afternoon to be with my family.  Wednesday afternoon my dad called and held the phone up to her ear and I talked to her for the last time, and right after that I told my friend Danielle about her and started crying.  I have been fine since I've been home, at least until the visitation tonight.  I avoided looking in the casket for a long time.  I looked at the pictures of my grandmother with all of her grandkids, and a lot of them are with me, the youngest granddaughter.  I look just exactly like Granny in all the pictures of her when she was young.  In the middle of the collage was a picture of Granny and Pops holding me when I was about a year old.  In the casket, Granny was wearing the same dress as she was in that picture.  I really was fine, though, until I saw her hands.  I couldn't stop thinking about her hands.

The mortician really did a beautiful job on her - she looked more like herself in the casket than she has in the last five years.  Her hands, though...  looked plastic.  I probably know the back of her hands better than I know my own.  She always had such soft, soft hands (that's where I get my soft hands) and one of my most vivid memories of her is of me playing with the skin on the back of her hands as a child because it was loose from old age, but still very very soft.

Whenever I try to think of the most perfect person, I think of Granny.  I remember walking into her bedroom one night to find her reading her Bible.  Other times I found her praying the rosary by her bedside.  She and Pops took care of me when my parents had to work and let me make blanket tents in their living room when I was really, really young, and visiting their house was always the highlight of my week.  My favorite video to watch at Christmas time is of Granny making Christmas cookies and telling my dad to g et out of her kitchen with that camera.  She always spoke her mind.  It was almost funny how when it was just the family at the funeral home before the visitation we were all exchanging stories of offensive things that she had said to us.  My mom said one of the last things she said to her was "You... you are out of proportion!"  My dad and brother both got haircuts this morning, and one of my dad's aunts said to him, "Good thing, or your mother would sit right up out of that casket and tell you to cut it!"  She was never shy about speaking her mind.  It wasn't mean, it was just her culture and who she was, and to us who loved her it was nothing short of endearing.

Last time I saw her she held my hands and didn't seem to want to let go.  I hugged her and kissed her cheeks, and she kept wanting to hold my hands and just look into my eyes.  Somehow inside I knew it would be the last time I'd see her.  She was so sick and fragile that I cried even then leaving her house.

For the past few years she's been praying to die, and for the past few months she has talked to Pops and her mother in her sleep asking them to come get her.  She was ready to go, and she knew she was going to Heaven.

On one of the boards there was a picture of Granny dancing with my dad when he married my mom, and everyone pointed it out.  My Granny always loved to dance, and we were all certain that right now she's dancing with Pops while her cousin Primo (who died about five years ago) and my grandfather's brother Unkie play mandolin and accordion and sing.  This is what she wanted, and after more than 96 years, it wasn't unexpected, but it's still really hard to think that someone that close and special to me is gone, and that I'm not going to see her again for a long time.  I am going to miss her, and I'll always, always, remember her.