Nannie

* Please listen to the two video clips of Eva Cassidy.

　                        
You do not truly understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. ~Proverb

http://youtu.be/nKjjRz0TEUk [Eva Cassidy~Songbird]

The other night, I was telling a friend of mine that it was 13 years ago, on Halloween night, that my husband and I were vacationing in Salem, MA. It was quite an experience to be in that place on that night. One year later, on Halloween 1999, [it was a Sunday], I spoke with my grandmother for the very last time.
I will never forget that phone call – the contents of it. Her last words to me: "I love you too, Dahlin’," ... such a gift to have those be the last words I heard her speak to me. She had been sick for a number of years. She was the epitome of grace in her disability. Her example is one that I try valiantly to hold onto as I live with mine.
Life started taking pieces of her the last decade of her life. She suffered with Phlebitis and high cholesterol, which caused her to loose half of her leg in the late 80's and several years later, half of the other. But, I’ll tell you something: at 89 years of age, that woman could run circles around me with both portions of her legs removed and one hand tied behind her back. She came from a different time - heartier stock, I call it. She was, quite simply, amazing.
My grandmother could have worn out the energizer bunny [my mother inherited that trait from her] "Go! Go! Go!" She was always busy – always doing something. Her hands were never idle, except when she was sleeping.
In her later years, she would oversee the chores done around her house; the vegetables that were picked, frozen or canned from her garden; she would do her therapy exercises from her bed; read her Bible daily, read mountains of books kept at arm’s length on her night table - she had a voracious appetite for reading [I come by it naturally]; and go through puzzle books like a house afire. Her body might not have cooperated with her, but she kept her mind sharp as a tack. That was an important thing for me to witness, because I find myself in that same position: my body not always cooperating with me, but I keep my mind active and strong - just as she did.
I remember once, when I was visiting her for the weekend before I got married, we were sitting in her bedroom, each reading. She asked me to help her adjust her position, and I rose from the chair we kept there, beside her bed, to assist her. She put her arm around my neck as I helped her move a bit. When I sat back down, I looked at her and asked softly:
"How do you do it, Nannie?"
She knew what I meant. She looked at me with those eyes of hers that were a gentle, chocolate brown and said. "I just try to be the best that I can be, Dahlin’, no matter how I am."
Wow, what an exquisite pearl of wisdom! When she gave her pearls away, they were like those great, big Mobe type pearls - bright with brilliance. I have an entire necklace of these type pearls that my grandmother gave to me. She strung them together so masterfully, and I try to wear them often, because it’s good to adorn oneself with the kind of pearls that my grandmother passed down. They’re more valuable than anything you could buy in a jewelry store.
I’ll share two more with you:
After I graduated from high school and was up visiting during the summer, I was sitting at the kitchen table lamenting to my grandmother, because someone I thought was a friend, had said something very unkind about me - basically stabbing me in the back. I wanted to retaliate-defend myself. We were no longer friends because, with friends like that...well, you know the rest of the saying.
My grandmother patted my hand and replied thoughtfully, "Well, she lost a good friend, and it sounds like she’s going to get a harsh come around one day. You need to be the bigger person and let it go."
My brows came together. The last part wasn’t anything I wanted to hear. But, I listened.
"It’ll come back to her," she said. "You mark my words. You may not be there to see it, but if you’re ugly to someone, it comes back to you, and when it comes back, it’s a lot worse than what you put out."
I’ve always remembered that. I strive to keep my ugliness to a bare minimum. [I am human after all...I have my moments] I don’t need anything else coming back on me or being a lot worse than what I put out there! It’s a standard joke in our family that the little black cloud called "WTH" knows our names and knows where we live. It seems, at times, that we’re on "the list", and it’s not the one where Publisher’s Clearing House is handing us a big, fat check with lots of zeros on it. It’s one where a little black cloud seems to have taken a liking to us, and wants to follow us around more often than not. Put another way, as my father use to say, if it weren’t for bad luck, this family would have none at all, because it seemed that we were, more often than not, dealing with some acid-rain situation that came from an ever-present little black cloud trailing after us.
Which is the perfect segue-way for something else my grandmother use to always tell me: don’t ever forget, when you think that life is being especially unfair to you, that there is someone out there a little worse off than you are. Some are better. Some are worse. That’s just the way it is. But, I guarantee you," she would say, "that if everybody dumped their life’s troubles out on the table for everybody else to see, you’d gather all your troubles up and move happily on your way."
Wasn’t she smart? Gosh, I miss her.
I miss her eyes and her laugh. I miss her gentle spirit. I miss her simple yet direct approach to life and the living of it. I miss her food. She was some kind of "mean" cook. No ones fried chicken compared to hers. Bar none, her sweet potato pie was the best around. Her creamed potatoes were smooth and thick, and I don’t know what extra "thing" she did to them, but I’ve never tasted anyone’s whose could equal hers. It was her vegetable soup, however, that was the five-star recipe in her gold star cookbook.  It could not be rivaled. A friend’s father swears that my grandmother’s vegetable soup helped heal him after he had a heart attack.
He said, and I quote, "there’s something magical in this bowl."
It was love. Everything she made; everything she did came from a place of love for her family.
I remember once, when I was a really little girl, she kept coloring books and crayons in the pantry and when my sister and I visited, we’d color at the table while she made biscuits or cobblers or whatever was on the menu for that day. My sister was a good color-er. Her strokes were perfectly even, her shading flawless and she never went out of the lines.
I remember once when Pam held up her coloring to show Nannie, she said with pride in her tone, "Oh, that’s lovely, Dahlin!"
I cried because mine wasn’t lovely. Pam was two and a half years older than me, and I didn’t color as patiently or diligently or pretty as she did. My colors weren’t typical. This was back when crayons didn't come in a gazillon colors. I wanted greenish blue skies in my picture, so my picture showed uneven green crayon marks attempted to be mixed in with swipes of blue. The coloring I did for the girl’s dress wasn’t perfectly between the lines. Pink lines darted out from beyond the black outline. It was a mess. The difference between my sister’s beautiful masterpiece and my abstract whatever you want to classify it as was night and day. I could clearly see it. I didn’t want to show mine to my grandmother, because I knew the difference between pretty and not so... When Nannie asked to see mine, I remember covering it with my hands, and when she urged me to show her, I laid my head on my hands and started to cry.
She stopped what she was doing and sat down in her chair at the end of the table. "Now, what’s all this fuss about?"
I can still feel the pout at my mouth. "I don’t color good," I cried.
She pulled me into her lap and moved the picture over to her so that she could see what had me so upset. She said in a tone of pure marvel. "Well, looka there! Look at that beautiful blue-green sky! I think that’s a fine sky!" [I guess you can see where my mother gets it from...]
"Yes Ma’am," I said, still not certain that it was true. I had wanted it to be a fine sky. I accepted that the sky was good. "But, I can’t color the clothes good."
She thought about it. She wasn’t going to lie to me. That’s something my grandmother just didn’t do. So, she approached it from a different angle.
"Well," she paused, choosing her words carefully. She couldn’t call it pretty because it wasn’t. But, here’s what she said to me. "It’s different, and just cuz something’s different doesn’t mean it isn’t good."
Good wasn’t pretty. I knew the difference.
"Mine isn’t pretty like Pam’s!" I said, still pouting.
"Well, Pam’s been coloring a lot longer than you have!" she said. "I’ll bet the more you color the better at it you’ll get." Then, she showed me what she meant. "See these black lines right here, showing you where the blouse meets the skirt?"
I nodded.
"When you get up to that black line, you color real gentle," she told me, picking up the crayon and showing me what she meant. She moved the crayon slowly against the line until she’d made about a thumbnail’s length of pink color away from it. Then, she began to color with more ease. "You make yourself a little border against the black and once you get a comfortable thickness of your color, then you can start coloring it quicker." And, the whole time she was telling me this, she was showing me what she meant.
"What color do you want to make her skirt?"
"Purple."
She picked up the purple crayon and handed it to me.
"Okay," she said. "Now start against the black line and move the color down slow and steady until you go all the way across."
I did as she instructed.
"Now, fill it in, and watch where all those other black lines are. When you get to them, you just need to slow down and think about what your doing. You’ll get the hang of it." There’s a life lesson in there: when you get to the boundary lines that surround your life, you need to slow down and think about what you’re doing. I don’t think she knew that she was a teacher as well as all the other things she was and did so masterfully, but she was.
I don’t normally brag on myself, but I’m a pretty, darn good color-er now.
I also learned how to cook by watching my grandmother. She was like a painter with her palette of spices. She knew how to couple or combine ingredients in a way that gave true flavor sensations. I never liked math or science as a kid but my grandmother taught me that creating flavors was a building block. You added a little of this and a pinch of that, and just like coloring in a picture book, the more you did it, the more comfortable you became at mixing things together and knowing that certain spices would work well with one another.
My grandmother was part scientist; part mathematician; part magician.
Like my grandfather, she knew how much crop would yield how much product for canning or freezing. She knew how to cure a cold or upset stomach, quiet a croupy cough, ease the pain of a tooth or earache without a medical degree behind her name. She knew how to turn a feed cloth into a dress that was the envy of every girl in class. She knew how to make you believe that your colorful abstract was every bit as good as your sister’s pretty masterpiece.
She was a gracious, southern lady. I remember, toward the end of her life, we spoke of mortality. I don’t think you could go through the things she did - the amount of surgeries she did and not have it be at the forefront of your mind, but she wasn’t afraid of death, because she knew where she was going. When it finally came for her, she was ready for it. She was prepared to leave with its calling. I think one thing that made it easier to deal with and accept - her passing - is that she had told each of us that she didn’t want us to be sad or grieve for her. She lived a good life, and she was ready to go. I remember, when she said those words to me, thinking what a blessing that must be, to have reached that point in your life and be comfortable with the reality of it and at total peace concerning it.
She was fine, for the most part, that Halloween night when I last spoke with her. She took a turn the following day. I think she’d spoken with everyone who mattered - expressed her love and said her farewells, so that when that turn came, she was ready to finally let go.
I remember when the phone call came early on that Tuesday morning in 1999, I hung the phone up and broke down crying - not for her but for us who she left behind. She left a huge hole - an unfillable hole. She was uncommon in beauty and strength and grace. I remember leaning my head back as tears poured down my face. Her words echoed in my mind: "Don’t be sad for me..." And, I whispered to heaven, "Just give me a minute, Nannie! I need a minute...."
I wrote her eulogy. I know we had a back-up plan for someone to speak in case I found that I couldn’t do it, though it’s one of a few things I really don’t recall. I don’t think anyone in my family thought, least of all me, that I could pull it off, because I’m such a crybaby when I loose something of such importance. I get very emotional, and speaking, especially in public, isn’t something I do very well when in an emotional state. Still, it was something that I not only wanted but needed to do to honor her. She was such an honorable woman who taught me so much. It was the least I could do. Don’t ask me how, but I was able to deliver it without breaking down.  All I know is that I prayed for God's strength to do it, and it was granted to me.
We shared a love of books and reading. As a child, as I’ve previously mentioned, my grandparents came to Florida every year to spend Thanksgiving with us. During one Thanksgiving visit, I was in my room reading a book that was too lofty a read for me at the time, and she heard me struggling with it. I remember her coming into the room, and sitting on my bed. She told me that it sounded like an interesting story that I was reading. She asked if she could read it with me. I was grateful, and I handed the book to her. She wrapped one arm around me and pulled me close to her as we read The Velveteen Rabbit.
In later years, many years later, I would use part of the words from that book in my wedding vows to Tom. They were especially poignant to me because my grandmother wasn’t able to be there when I got married. But, her smile was big when she was told some of the words I gave to him, which were words she had first given to me:

"What is REAL?" the Rabbit asked the Skin Horse one day, when they were lying side by side. Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"REAL isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become REAL"

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "But, when you are REAL you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are REAL, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But, these things don't matter at all, because once you are REAL you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"...once you are REAL you can't become unreal again. It last for always...."

Twelve years ago today, my grandmother went to heaven. I can’t say that there have been moments when I haven’t been sad and grieved for her. After all, I am only human, and she above all knew that. I think she’d give me pass on it.
When I think of her, I think of love, and goodness and grace. I think of a woman with impeccable timing whether it was with regard to taking something out of the oven or knowing just the precise moment when to reach her hand out and extend a cherry lifesaver to a fidgety child in church. She knew that by the time that life saver was gone, church would have let out, and we’d be heading home to share a delicious meal that her hands had lovingly prepared for all of us.
What I wouldn’t give for a cherry life saver or one of her home-cooked meals today! What I wouldn’t give to hear her laugh or read me a few lines from a treasured book! What I wouldn’t give to hear her say one more time, "I love you too, Dahlin’!"
I use to think that songs which expressed a high, grand note of love were limited to men and women who were in love. As I’ve grown older, I no longer believe that is the sole purpose of such songs. Love songs can define emotions between a parent for their child and vice versa, love between two friends or the love shared between a grandchild for their grandmother.
This morning, I listened to a song sung by a special artist to me. Her name was Eva Cassidy and she lived in Bowie, Maryland, which is a small town on the outskirts of where I lived for 17 years. She was my age. She was just breaking out in her career, but the residents in the greater metro area of DC/Maryland/Northern Virginia knew of her. She was an amazing talent. Her voice was rich, smooth....like butta it was. She died on this date too - 15 years ago. There is a cover she did of a song that has always been a particular favorite. I think of my grandmother when I listen to it:

"For you, there’ll be no crying. For you, the sun will be shining. Because I feel that when I’m with you, it’s alright. I know it’s right...
And, the songbirds keeps singing like they know the score: I love you! I love you! I love you, like never before.
To you, I would give the world. To you, I’d never be cold. Because I feel that when I’m with you, it’s alright. I know it’s right.
And, the songbirds keep singing like they know the score: I love you! I love you! I love, like never before....like never before....like never before..."

I love you, Martha Jane Tignor Whitlock, born into heaven on Tuesday, November 2, 1999. It doesn’t escape me that Tuesday’s Child is full of grace... God certainly had you pegged, and that’s what we’ve been left with – those of us who love you still – the memory of your grace...

http://youtu.be/Gk20o_-LZn8 [Autumn Leaves/Eva Cassidy]