Maw Maw

Watching the Hannah Montana movie really made me homesick. Hearing the grandmother call her grand-daughter Darlin' and honey made me miss my Grandma's really badly.

I miss my Grandma Lowe, which was my mom's mom.

I miss how she used to ask "give me some sugar" and she would hold out her cheek and wait for a kiss from me. I miss the time at Christmas when we gave her a VCR (that played VHS - very high tech at the time) and she said "Aww you got me a Mitsu-Bitchy". I miss the Thanksgiving Day when we all were so hungry waiting around for her to show up and my mom called the local J&K Cafeteria on a hunch and sure enough she was there and eating all alone. She made it a point to eat there every Thursday. When my mom asked her why she was there she simply replied "well honey, it's Thursday". This of course was in her later years, when her mind just began to get the very best of her. I miss dancing with her cheek to cheek at my cousin Lisa's wedding.

I miss how she used to tell my mom, when they would eat at the Cupboard (a local country cooking restaurant in Charlotte) that there sure were a lot of babies in the room. This of course was also later in her life. She was right at the border of senility and it was hard to tell when she was having a moment and when she was making a profound statement. My mom questioned her after looking around and said "Mother, there aren't any babies in the room, what are you talking about?" and Maw maw just commented about how all the waitresses would call all of the gentlemen that were dining in for lunch "Baby". She was always quite a lady, my maw-maw. She always had her own way.

I miss how she would take me to Hardee's for a hot dog. I miss how she would never order it plain, as I would request. I miss how she would tell me that you couldn't even taste the onions, and yet I would never ever eat them, not even just one. I miss how she had packets of ketchup stowed away in her drawers because it was free and you could ask for extra. I miss the stale Nilla Wafers in her cookie jar. I miss watching reruns of "Dallas" and "Hee-haw" with her and Paw-Paw while I was curled up on the couch.

I thought about it the other day and I remembered spending lots and lots of time at their house when I was younger. Maw-Maw and Paw Paw would watch me a lot and I really miss the time that I had when I was there. It can be tough being the youngest in a family like mine. You get the best and the worst of worlds to experience. I experienced Paw-paw's stroke, and then later his death from a child's eyes. I never understood his health problems but just thought it was because he was really old. Looking back I remember teaching him how to write again after his stroke. I just thought it was fun that I was able to teach my paw-paw how to write and he was so much older than me. I never knew it was because he had forgotten how to because of brain functioning and that he would not let any adults bother him with lessons but would always listen to me.

I think about things like this and I wonder what it would have been like had they had better health or if they had lived just a bit longer. What would my adult relationship with them entail? Maybe I would bear the blunt of some doctor's visits? Maybe I would be visiting them regularly at the home to make sure that they were still eating.

In my Maw-maw's last days I remember that in the weeks leading up to her time to go I made my last visit to her at the nursing home. I took her a bunch of roses and kissed her on the cheek. She was eating dinner with some of the other ladies from the home and she introduced me to all of them and had the biggest smile upon her face. Looking back I know that the moment didn't mean half as much to me then as it does now, but I am glad that I was able to have the memory. It was the last one that I have of her. When I heard that she was in the hospital I also heard that her health had faded fast. I was told that she had refused to eat and that her memory was shot and she was on the way out. I did not want to see her like this. I wanted to remember the big smile that I had seen when I visited her at the nursing home. I wanted to think of her as that sweet robust woman that is full of joy and full of life. The one that always asked me for "some sugar".

Later on mom told me that the last memory I had with Grandma was one of the only things that she remembered in her last days. It meant a lot to me that of the few memories that she was able to retain that me and my bunch of roses had been one of them.

I miss my grandma quite a lot. But most of all I miss my Maw-maw's sugar.