My friend, Shermetta, suggested the other day that I move my blogs from myspace to facebook. Truth be told, I've had other projects going on, and I haven't written any blogs lately. But, after paying my respects to an old family friend yesterday, I felt a blog gurgling about.
When my grandfather passed away, we built a mother-in-law suite onto our house years before it became fashionable, and my dear, but slightly insane, grandmother moved in with us. Upon her death, as we were cleaning out her room, we found 68 white socks (belonging to my dad, brother, and myself) tucked under her bed. She had been "collecting" them for years from the laundry room. My brother and I like to call those years "Nanny's crazy years." We still laugh until we cry about some of her antics during that time period; but, don't you have to laugh about it?
I grew up in the very tight-knit community of Brysonville set in the Cannon County Hills. A country "neighbor" (meaning they could live 10 miles away) named Mabel stayed with my grandmother during the day while my family was at work and school. Mabel was a gentle soul, and she never even so much as raised her voice to my crazy grandmother. Nanny and Mabel would clean, cook, watch soap operas, shell peas, can, and do laundry together during the days of their many years spent together.
Mabel was married to a much older man, but I never saw her out and about with him. Her constant companion was Rayburn, her bachelor son. A story floated around that Rayburn once had a girlfriend, but it didn't last because Mabel went on their dates with them. I still don't know if the story is true.
Mabel's body just simply wore out on her earlier this week at the age of 79. I talked with Rayburn at the graveyard, and he seemed just lost without his Mabel. He has no family left, and I realized how lucky I am to come from such a large, nosey, infuriating, loud, loving family.
Mabel was buried in the Reed Cemetery, and many of my own relatives are at rest there. I began looking around at the tombstones, and I was drawn to a stone with the epitaph, "She lived a loud life." It was so much more interesting than "Rest in Peace." I started to think about what Tony would put on my stone. I'd like to think it would be something romantic, such as, "Wit and daring lurked just under the surface in the waters of her sapphire eyes." But, I'm not married to a romantic, I'm married to a funny fellow. I suspect he would choose somthing like, "Fill Dirt Here, Please" for my epitaph. (There would also be an arrow. Tony would find an arrow funny).
I really don't have to worry about such, though. I don't want to be stuck in a box. I will be cremated. I read "Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral" a few years ago. I hated the book, but I loved the idea of the departed's friends taking a road trip across the country to spread Annie's ashes at places that were important to her. I'd have Tony sprinkle a few of my ashes atop these hills that I love so dearly, and then I'd send my friends across the country to sprinkle the rest - the trip would be taken in a convertible, of course. Fun times would be had by all, as Desi would no doubt be involved.
Rest in peace, Mabel. Thank you for loving and caring for my crazy Nanny. But, these are words that really should be spoken in life.
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