30 Years in 30 Weeks - edition 10

This blog entry is probably one of the hardest ones I'll do. This picture was taken not too many months before my grandmother passed away. The baby brother I had been wishing for was born in July after I turned nine years old, and not too much longer, Grandma died. I can still remember the uncomfortable, awkward moment when my dad told me. She was such an amazing woman and it makes me sad to know that Sarah was too young to have any memories of her.

My earliest memory is at my Grandma's house. Mom told me that I couldn't have been more than two years old. I was sitting in a high chair at the dining room table with Grandma to my left and Mom to my right. I was eating an orange and got choked on some of the skin/membrane stuff around each segment. Grandma stuck her finger down my throat to retrieve the orange piece. She had very long fingers and fingernails. If you've seen my mom's hands, they are pretty much like Grandma's. I guess that's why I remember that moment so vividly. My cousin, Jan, mentioned in an earlier post that Grandma always had cookies at her house. She did and they were the best. My favorite were Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies. Serious yum. My other favorite that Grandma made was Strawberry Jello Salad. If you've ever attended one of our family functions, you know there isn't an event that goes by without it! We always had Christmas Eve at the Kingwood house. Grandma would make lots of food (of course) and always took special care to get us the best presents she could find...Cabbage Patch Kids, my first "jam-box" (it was lavender), and my first TV. Mandy, Nikki and I had a blast playing in the "sunken" living room - playing on the old piano, performing skits - complete with costumes made from wrapping paper, etc. Grandma's house was the coolest...she had lots of old toys to play with, good food and cable. That was really a novelty back then! She even let us play in her good Estee Lauder make-up! I remember another time when a can of soup fell on my toe in her kitchen. She gave me the good old stand-by of "It will get well before you get married" and walked around in the backyard with me. When my cousin Kelli and I went to Girl Scout Camp one summer, she wrote me lots of letters and made sure to address each of them to "Sugar Bear" - her nickname for me. I loved it when she worked at Foley's at the purse counter and we got to go see her. She let me play with her "twist-a-bead" necklaces. She let us have candles in real candlestick holders - even at the children's table. She loved watching the hummingbirds at the feeders on her patio and the Houston Rockets. And she was a fighter. One particular day, I decided I needed to learn how to turn cartwheels. Grandma went out in the front yard and proceeded to practice with me. Nevermind that, due to her ALS, she was wearing leg braces to her knees on both legs. She never once let on that it was too hard for her to do. Even when she was in the hospital and couldn't talk, she still made sure to write out her thoughts on one of those wax write-and-peel pads - even to voice her opinion on my yet-to-be-born cousin Bodie's name. A truly amazing woman. I hope I can be like her one day. Love you Grandma.