My Grandfather taught us so many things. He amazed us but
you know what they say “behind every great man there’s a great woman”.
My earliest memory of her is her holding me
while I laid on her (as I called them) big “pillows” and she always sang “Hush Little Baby, Papa’s
going to buy you a mockingbird”, I loved it, until he came home from work then
it was “Papa” time. He was my main man and I was his little first born granddaughter.
My grandfather was such an influence and special person in my life but so was
this little lady that was always flying under the radar. He may have taken us
fishing every weekend, but who packed our lunches and made sure we had our sweet
treats in there and who cooked the fish for dinner when we got home. He may
have taught me everything about Archery and entered me in weekend tournaments but
she was the one on the line next to me as I grew up and had to switch from the
Cub/Youth line over to the Woman’s line.
He may have played the guitar and sang songs to us so we could dance
around but many of those songs he sang because they were her favorite songs. We
may have fought over “who gets to sit next to Papa” at the dinner table but she
was the one who set that table. We may
have gone through the woods and picked berries with him until our fingers were
sore from all the prickers but when we were done who washed the berries and baked
us that pie for dessert. She was just always there doing her thing, doing what
Grandma’s do I guess.
As, I grew older there were so many other things she did for
me. She took me on my first job interview as a teenager and I begged her to
come in with because I was so scared. She didn’t of course; she talked me
through it and waited in the car. She took me to my first GYN appointment which
I was also scared about but didn’t beg her to come in with me (ha-ha). They took
in my younger sister when my parents couldn’t deal with her antics anymore but my Grandma
took the brunt of her “teenage” years and kept many secrets from Papa in that
respect. I remember taking the long way home from the bus stop just so I could
stop in after school and see her. Then I
grew up even more and I had a child, his middle name is my Grandfather’s last
name which is what I have always said but you know what; it’s her last name too!! When my son was born he had so many Grandmas’
and at this point my grandparents had moved an hour away north of us, so we
called her Gram UpNorth. We still do, all of us, it stuck.
So there was this incredible man, however there was also an
amazing woman. She was always there, his wife, his side kick, a housewife, a
mother and my Grandma. She was just
always there. She never fought for the spotlight she just let us be Papa’s
girls because that’s just how it always was.
My Grandfather died 11 years ago of lung cancer at 68 years old. My
Grandmother is still going strong and going to be 81years old next month. When
he died so did everything she had ever known. She was strong and looking back,
I now realize how much sadness she must have felt, alone, up north in that
house. She still lives in that house; the house that my Grandfather re-did on
his own with his 2 hands….everything in there screams their name. She got a job (she had barely worked a day in
her life) and she worked there up until last summer. She traveled around with her best
friend. She at first continued to go to Archery Shoots, if we could bring her
or tag along with Archery friends. She keeps the Archery Range that he built open and useable
to this day. She joined a church and made many new friends. She is an
inspiration and a very, strong independent woman. I maybe didn’t realize this all along but as I
age and I see her or look back at the things she has done, she is just amazing.
She is a young almost 81 years old, she tries hard to keep up with things, to keep up with us,
she watches NASCAR, she’s on Facebook, she drives, she has a cell phone and she
dresses pretty darn cute too.
She is and always will be my Grammie and I hope
she knows how very much I love her, always have and always will even if we were
“Papa’s Girls”
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