Grandma

"Do not put that mascara on today" I told myself as I was putting my makeup on. I did it anyway. I know it won't be there for long. Tears come and go in spurts. My mind has been full of memories of her today. Here is the best picture in the whole world. It was taken in Dec. '08. My grandmother, Norma, never took many pictures. Hated the camera, actually. This is four generations of wonderful, smart, creative, and STUBBORN women. It was good to see her smile at her great grandchildren. Norma Ruth Griffin. She was born during the 1927 flood, made it throught the Depression, married and raised 4 children at an early age. She suffered through a divorce and later the death of one of her daughters. Both my mom and my grandma raised me. She left this earth May 13th, 2010 at 1:30am. My mother is handling the details and rounding up the siblings. Grandma will be cremated and we will have our own personal funeral in Indianola, MS where we are suppose to bury her ashes near her mother and father's grave. I haven't been to MS in the summer in over six years probably. I imagine it will be mega hot and steamy. It will be good to reunite the family though. Unfortunately, this happens at weddings and funeral, right? Bay and June will get to meet my aunts and uncles. The last few quotes I remember from grandma are:
1)"I don't know what I would do without you". She said this to me at the first nursing home she lived at in MS. I visited her quite often then.
2)"Have a nice life" as we moved her to a TN nursing home and I moved to KY. She knew me then. She had alzheimer's. That one hit me pretty hard. I felt I was kind of leaving her all alone.
3) "who's the daddy?" she asked when a couple of years later when we brought Bay to TN to meet her. She is so funny. My cousin and I are her only grandchildren and we were children of divorce as babies(probably fetuses). so "who's the daddy?" may have been a familiar question 29 yrs ago. The funny thing is that Tony (THE daddy) was standing in the room with us.
My grandmother was a tough one. I never saw her cry. She just wasn't very emotional I guess. Other words to describe her: stubborn, blunt, smoker, dancer, mathematician, racist(born and raised in MS), unchanging(good and bad), mother, brave, selfless, giving, trustworthy, strong, and a hard worker. She worked a few jobs at the same time to take care of her children and was a single mom for a while. She didn't have any hobbies really.When she retired, she retired. She didn't do anything after that. She didn't knit or sew(but she knew how). She had a sweet tooth which caused her to bake butter cakes and iced sweet tea frequently. I liked that. She liked crumbled cornbread in milk. I guess it is a southern thing. Maybe a creation from not having much(depression?). Sometimes she would french braid or plat, she called it, my hair if I asked her to. But she wouldn't let me play with her hair. She mostly watched TV. She liked gameshows like wheel-a-fortune. I knew that she was ALWAYS there and wasn't going anywhere, that's for sure. I would sit and hold her soft hands. Do all old people have soft hands? Hers were so soft. I loved to hold her hand (And pinch her elbow skin which she would tell me that I would have it when I got old too). I loved her greatly and miss her from time to time.