Last week my mother's grandmother passed away at the age of 98. My sister had a little tribute of sorts on her blog and it was so nice that I thought I'd just share it with all of you. My sister just had a daughter who she named after our great-grandmother, they both share the middle name Cora.
"Abigail and Lily's great-great grandmother passed away on June 17, 2010. She was 98 years old. She was born in 1912, the same year the Titanic sank. She saw Mount Lassen erupt as a young child. She was a major part of my life growing up. Outside of my immediate family, she was probably the most influential person in my childhood. When I was young, she lived (with my great-grandfather) on an 80-acre cattle farm in Cottonwood, CA about 25 minutes from our house. Us kids visited often and spent many weekends there. We spent a lot of time in her huge greenhouse re-potting and watering plants, taking walks to the end of their property to look at Cottonwood Creek and eat figs from the trees, feeding the baby cows with huge bottles or the bigger cows crab apples that had fallen to the ground. She had an organ in her den that I don't remember ever playing and Pac Man on Atari that we did play once or twice. We sat on the floor in her dark, stuffy living room and were so bored watching Jeopardy and other game shows. We sat at our kid-sized table with our tea set at the end of the kitchen counter. We stretched our imaginations playing in an old truck camper shell that was on the ground in the yard. We climbed bales of hay up to the ceiling of the barn. We even briefly had a pony that bucked us off and then soon after found a new home. We had our own room where we slept on a daybed with pictures of sailboats on the walls. We went to early dinners at North's Chuck Wagon where they charged kids by how much they weighed (maybe not so PC these days) and loved getting to choose what we wanted to eat from the buffet (hand carved roast beef!). We did all the things that kids should do with her.
We played games. Grandma Smith loved to play games. I'm pretty sure she gave me my competitive nature. She never threw a game just because you were younger than her, she wanted to win just as much as anyone else, but never in a mean-spirited way. Right up until 98 years old she played games with us. I remember her playing pinochle with her friends weekly when she lived with my parents (in the late 1990s and early 2000s) and being on a bowling league well into her 70s. She loved to play dominoes with us kids and RummyKub and Phase 10. But she was always willing to play any game and was deeply offended if she wasn't invited to play. I'm sure this helped keep her mind sharp until the very end. She was also a big baseball fan. She loved the Braves, but I don't recall her having any ties to Atlanta. We went to many Giants games in San Francisco growing up and she often came along to see the Giants play the Braves. She also liked the Lakers, which never went over well in our house. But she enjoyed watching all sports."
I thought I'd also share some of the other things that I remember about her and our time that we spent with her (other than the things my sister mention, all of which I remember doing). I remember eating tuna fish sandwiches on toasted bread with pickles on our little table at the end of the counter. I remember standing on the two-tiered folding stool helping Grandma put the dishes away. I remember looking at the Christmas decorations that she put up every year. Especially the little fake trees she had; one covered in fake birds, the other was ceramic and had permanent lights fixed to the branches. I remember the "Easter baskets" that we got every year, these were just straw cowboy hats turned upside down and filled with treats. I remember looking over the fence on their ranch and saying hi to the horses next door. I remember exploring in the garage and trying to avoid the spiders. I remember chasing the cat around the house and watching him just sitting on the porch all day long. I remember playing in the sprinkler in the front yard. I remember drinking milk that came from her cows. I remember the first time we went down to her house and all the cows were gone (this was after Grandpa Cow passed away) and I couldn't figure out where they had all gone (my mom told me that the butcher took them and that our freezer was very full and I didn't really get it). I remember playing Yahtzee on the table in the living room that looked out the window into the backyard. I remember the blue tile in the bathroom and the soft cushioned toilet seat that I thought all old people had.
In later years I was able to get to know her better when she came to live with us. She was always doing something funny. We could often hear sports blaring from her room (baseball and bowling on full blast during all hours of the day). She had her friends over for cards very often so we got to know them too. Each time they came over Grandma was in charge of cooking dinner and once she cooked some pizza with the wrapper still on. They still ate it and didn't seem to mind one bit. She also had problems with her medicines and once was prescribed 10 times the amount she should have been taking and was hallucinating. She came out of her room and told us that the boy in her closet was hungry and wanted to know if we could make him a sandwich. She also wanted to know if the train in our backyard made regular stops. It was a little scary at the time, but later it turned into just another funny thing that happened while she was here. Another funny thing she did was drive straight by Jennifer and me while we were sitting on the side of the road after just having been in an accident. We were just a few houses down from our house and my dad's truck was sitting on the side of the road with the front end smashed and there was a motor home sicking out into the street with the back end all smashed up and she just smiled and waved and drove on by. Later she said that she did notice what was happening, but that she was late for cards and she didn't have time to stop.
Her last few years were spent at an assisted living home and was known for harassing the girls that work there. It was pretty funny to see how feisty she was and that even though she was getting old she was still sharp and wanted to make sure that she wasn't getting the short end of any stick. She also wanted to make sure that no one thought any less of her than what she actually was. When some one accused her of doing something she would argue until you saw things the way she did ("I did not fall asleep." "I did not fall off the bed." and so on). It was good to see this side of her and I could imagine what she must have been like when she was younger. She also loved showing Bella all the toys that she kept in her room. She loved turning on all of her animated stuffed animals and watching Bella react to them. She always wanted Bella to play with her as much as possible.
I am grateful that we had her in our lives and I'm so glad that we got to know her as well as we did. I'm so grateful that Bella got to know her great-great grandmother and I know that we'll make sure that she remembers her and how special it is that she had that opportunity.
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