A Whole New World: My Grandmother

Thursday, April 5, 2012

My Grandmother

Mattie Lou Oliver

December 1st, 1922 - April 4, 2012

One of my favorite pictures of Grandmother - love that she's laughing.

My sweet Grandmother went to be with the Lord today. She died peacefully with family at her side and knowing that she was loved. I will miss her and I was sad to not be with her in the end, but I'm so grateful for all the good memories I have of her, and I'm so glad that my husband and my children got to know her too. The girls are old enough that they will remember their G.G. (for Great-Grandmother) and that makes me happy.

It's hard to feel too sad when I know that Grandmother is going to have her best Easter ever in the arms of her Savior, but I can't help but mourn the loss of both her presence in my life and her prayers for me and my family. I know she prayed for me every day - she told me, but I could also feel it and it gave me comfort to always know that whatever was happening in my life, whatever challenge I was facing, Grandmother was praying about it.

Grandmother loved people and she loved to always know what was going on with everyone. I would guess in her day she would have known all the gossip that there was to know - but she was never malicious and she truly cared about others. Growing up in a family of four girls there was probably never a lack of things to chat about and she just kept right on chatting til the end.

Grandmother was definitely a southern belle - she grew up in Alabama and I always loved her southern cooking. She was the queen of boiled peanuts, banana cream pie, fried ocra and collard greens to name some of my favorites. She didn't leave the house without her hair done and her makeup on, even if it took half the day to get that way in her later years, and one of my favorite childhood memories is watching the Miss America pageant with her every year. She also taught me all sorts of card games like gin rummy and I can still impress my Kiwi friends with how I shuffle cards and she taught me that too.