An Ode to Edna

My sister had a status update on Facebook yesterday about my grandmother. It got me thinking about grandma and missing her terribly. I thought I would write about some of my very favorite memories of my grandma...a little reminiscing. Here are the things that I remember and loved the most about my grandmother:

She smelled like White Shoulders perfume.

She used to pick me up from school in her grandma-mobile when I was sick and my mom couldn't come get me. Many of my cousins don't remember my grandma ever driving, but being the oldest granddaughter, I do. Her car had leather seats and my polyester uniform pants would slide across the seat every time she turned a corner. No one wore seat belts, of course, back then.

She made THE BEST fried cornbread and bean soup....you could almost always find a plate of cold cornbread sitting on her counter. Yum!

As she got older, we could sit in the same room with her and have an entire conversation about her without her ever knowing. Occasionally, she would look confused and yell "What?" across the room. Mostly, she just sat there and smiled.

She bought generic Fritos and they rocked!

Lucas used her oxygen tubing as a teething ring...as did most of the great-grandkids before she passed away.

You did not try to have a conversation with her when Dr. Phil was on.

Her house often smelled like salmon patties.

I used to spend the night with her on the weekends and she would set me up in the back bedroom with a blanket, a TV, a bowl of strawberries, and Country Time lemonade. Heavenly.

When I was a teenager, she sat me down one day and very seriously told me that I could move in with her if I ever needed to get away from my house. I don't think my mom was aware of her offer.

The woman could put away the food!

She loved to play poker...and she cheated.

She loved nothing better than getting in your business. And she had an opinion about everything and everyone.

I used to clean her entire house for her on Saturday mornings. She would pay me $5. Apparently, she didn't give a rip about child labor laws.

In high school, she would call me on Friday nights to pick up two chicken liver dinners from Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken for her and papaw. Yuck.

She loved barbecued hot dogs... and she preferred them burnt to a crisp.

Her kitchen table was THE place to learn about everything a person would ever need to know in this life.

She loved the color red and wore it often.

She had this amazing entire hallway full of framed pictures of her grandkids and great-grandkids. Every single one of us was represented up there....a shrine. And when one of us graduated from high school, she had a special shelf above her TV when senior pictures would go.

She accepted Ruanita with open arms. She may not have completely understood us, but she never wavered for a single minute in her complete devotion to me....as she did all of her grandkids. She adored Lucas and never thought of him as anything but her great-grandson.

In the last couple of years of her life, I used to call her a lot on my way home from work when I was stuck in traffic. She always sounded so excited to hear from me, even if I had just called her the day before.

If you were ever in trouble or had a problem or a concern, grandma would tell you that she would pray a novena for you. She was big on praying to the Virgin Mary for you.

I have an afghan she made for me that is brown, black, and orange. I can only assume those yarn colors were on sale. My kids and I call it the Halloween afghan.

Her house was THE place to be. You could sit in grandma's living room and see almost every member of the family within the course of a day. Visits to Kentucky haven't been the same since she passed away.

She loved having the whole family over on Christmas Eve. We would all hang out at her house, eating and making lots of noise, until Midnight Mass. I remember many Christmas Eve nights falling asleep on her couch and having to be awakened to go to church.

She always had a pot of coffee going. When I was a kid, she used to let me finish the cold coffee in her cup. Mmmm. That may be where my addiction to coffee stems from...thanks grandma.

We debated naming Sophie after grandma, but her name was Edna Merle. We decided we couldn't do that to our poor daughter.

She lived just down the street from me and her house was my second home. I would walk down to say hi to her almost every single day.

She used to cut my hair when I was a kid...she was infamous for nipping the ears...OUCH! She would also french braid my hair because my mom didn't know how. She could make a french braid SO tight that it wouldn't fall out for a week!

Any time we got a tick on us when we were kids (we played outside a lot), we would be sent to grandma's house. My mom freaked at the sight of ticks and grandma was a master tick-remover.

She had two awesome weeping willow trees in her back yard when we were kids. My sisters and I would play under them and pretend they were our playhouses.

She had 12 kids and 20-something grandkids, but she always had time to talk when you stopped by or called her.

I realize that I may be a tiny bit biased, but I think my grandma was the greatest that ever lived. I miss her every day. She would have had a blast at our upcoming family reunion. I can see her cheating at the poker table...stuffing her face full of burnt hot dogs...telling the rowdy boys to watch their mouths...and grinning ear to ear. She cherished her family and was never happier than when she had the whole family around her. Her huge presence will be dearly missed at the reunion.