My Grandma

Gosh, just typing the title makes me get a lump in my throat and my eyes water.  Here goes, I have been putting this off for a while.  But doing things like this, actually talking (typing) about it, makes it more real I guess.  With that being said.....sucking it up and here it goes.

The sassy one in the middle? That's my Grandma, Jessie Ellen Ramey. I don't know the story behind this picture, but I love that my Grandpa is looking at her like, "What are you doing?!"

I don't really know where to start, so I guess I will be a little all over the place.  My Grandma passed away on April 12, 2010.  She was 78 years old.  She had been a roller coaster of health for the past few years, and yet she is so stubborn, she has always made comebacks.  Because of this, I was in pure shock when I heard the news. It's still hard to believe....

My grandparents had a profound effect on me and who I am today.  That's where this gets a little tricky.  My Grandpa passed away when I was 16.  I didn't have a blog back then, and no way to really talk about it.  He was my ideal father figure.  So with my Grandma's death it brings it all back.  Everything, all the emotions come flooding back.

They were from Kentucky. Neither had a high school diploma, or an education past the ninth grade.  They married young, and in their adult life had a few successful businesses.  They both knew the value of hard work, and taught us the same-especially by example.  When I was really little she worked for the state with people with mental and physical disablilites. I knew that it was really hard the work she was doing, and sometimes she would get physically hurt, but she loved the kids she worked with and she would tell stories about them.  My sister and I spent a great deal of time at their house.  We moved to Tennessee when I was 8, and every vacation we had from school- Christmas, Spring Break, and Summer was spent at Grandma and Grandpa's.  It was never boring either.  They were members of a camping club, so every summer we would go camping-if I close my eyes I can still hear the horn my Grandpa installed that would play the same tune as the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazard as we would pull in to the site where the rest of the club and their grandkids would be.  I can still smell the camp fires, hear their laughter, and still recall the sound of my Grandpa's whistle you could hear no matter how far you roamed telling you it was time to come back.  Their backyard and basement held so many adventures for us.  I remember a glass of ice water that held green onions from the garden at every dinner.  I remember picking green beans from the garden and complaining to my Grandma that it hurt my back and her laughing at me.  The house getting so hot from canning those green beans, and then having to go to the basement to fetch her some for dinner.  Hanging clothes on the clothesline, only to play volleyball over it later.  Grandma threatening us to "go and pick a switch" if we didn't mind her.  The unfailing trust and confidence they had in us, and the safety and love we felt in their home.

My Grandma seemed to have a solution for everything.  She would always get onto me for not holding my pencil correctly, and one time I was doing my homework at their house (I must have been in first grade?) and I needed glue.  We didn't have any, so Grandma just smiled and said, "Watch this." And mixed flour and water, that held everything just right.  I was so amazed by this. When I think about it, I don't remember her getting stressed over things (except my Grandpa :))-she always had a way.  She crocheted like no other.  I am so grateful I have not only my own blanket, but she made one for Abram as well.  She could also quilt.  She was so amazing at being creative. I like to think some of that rubbed of on me and my sister.  She took me to get a couple awful perms at the beauty shop because I asked her to.....the days the afro began.

She had a cake decorating business,  She was AMAZING at decorating cakes. I could (and would) watch her for hours making the perfect roses out of icing, and decorating a cake with flawlessness.  She told us grandkids one day to make sure when the cakes were baking that we didn't jump in the kitchen.  You see, that makes the cakes bake so that the tops bubble up, which she would have to cut off.  Meaning we would get to eat them (WHY would she tell us such things?).........between that and the leftover icing.... the chunky years of my life began.

When I think back, they must have had an enormous amount of patience to put up with us.  And we never got into any trouble (well Natalie did once, but that was well deserved and a story for a later time).  We had such respect and admiration for them. 

My Grandma loved flowers, she planted them all around her house, and did some floral arranging as well.  The irises are still on the side of her house, and have been there ever since I can remember.  Every time I see them to this day, they remind me of her.  Those and violets.  Violets in the kitchen window.  Christmas Eves at their house-with TONS of food, laughter, arguing about the Bengals vs. the Browns.  The fits my Grandpa would give my Grandma.  My Grandpa loved to tease my Grandma.  We would be driving to family reunions in the boonies of Kentucky on these narrow mountain back roads where the camper would seem to sway off the edge a little, she would scream at him all the way there-my sister and I would laugh (and pray that we would fall over the edge).  But he loved her.  He was a quiet man, but even so, you knew he loved her.

Grandma collected owls.  I don't know how that got started.  There are so many things that, well-that's just the way they were.  And until now, I never thought to question why, or when they started  She got sassier with age.  You never had to wonder where you stood with her, she would definitely let you know-you didn't even need to ask.  But she loved you.  Oh how she loved you.  In the same sentence where she told you how fat you've gotten, she would offer to help with whatever you needed.  She loved her family, and would do anything for us that she could.  There is so much more I could say.....but the bottom line is she was an amazing woman......

and I really miss her.