Saying Goodbye

Today, we say goodbye to one of the most important Moms in my life, my Granny.

Mary Cecil Trew

April 18, 1920 – April 16, 2014

Today, family and friends will gather in a small stone chapel in Bryan, and celebrate a woman who celebrated life and all that it had to offer.  We will reminisce about her gorgeous smile, her welcoming heart, her zest for life, her passion for her friends, her special Granny Tea, her banana pudding, and her laugh that bubbled up from the very depths of her soul and lit up the world.

My Granny was my playmate, my best friend, my biggest cheerleader, the one from whom I got my passion for cooking and feeding others.  Granny was, and always will be one of the most important people in my world.

I wrote this for my Granny in 1998, I was 19 years old.  When Nathan and I got married, I framed it and gave it to her.  Right before she moved out of her house and into assisted living, Granny handed me a well worn piece of paper, creased, softened with time and use.  When I unfolded it, I found the original copy that I had mailed her all those years ago.  That copy is tucked into my bible on my nightstand.

It seems appropriate to share it today, on Mother’s Day, the day we say Goodbye.

Granny

As a small child I naively sat on your lap and patted your wrinkled cheek with my chubby hand and told you I loved you.
All I saw in your face was age and all I saw in your eyes was love for me.
I didn’t see all the memories or stories that had caused all those lines.
Nor, did I see the love, laughter, and joy that had so carefully etched each of those memories in your face.
When I was young, you seemed so old, now that I’m older you seem so much younger. Which of us has changed so much that it now seems as if you are cheating time and growing younger while I constantly keep getting older.
Where did all that time go when I was young?
All those hours spent playing dress up and board games…
How I wish that I had taken the time to get to know you.
The real you.
The girl you were, before you became the grandmother who wiped away my tears, kissed away all of my pains and laughed as I pretended that I was “wonder woman” while running haphazardly through your house in my underwear.
Now that I am finally old enough to appreciate all the time you gave to me, and now that I can finally see that those wrinkles aren’t wrinkles they are just life’s beauty marks: there to let everyone know that you have truly lived loved lost laughed, but most of all survived.
And now, now that I want that time to learn and listen and hear all the stories that you have to tell.
Now there isn’t enough time.
Every phone call I mean to make every letter I mean to write and every visit I mean to make.
It just seems like time is slipping too quickly through my fingers.
I know I cannot stop time or turn back the hands of that mythical clock. But I can remember all that you so wisely taught the little girl that I was: Compassion, Faith, Laughter, Love and most of all you taught me to live.
I take those gifts now as the woman I am and will use them to become the woman I am destined to be because of you, and in my heart of hearts I can only hope that someday my own grandchild will sit in my lap and with the light of love shining in her eyes, naively pat my wrinkled cheek and smother me with wet kisses and tell me:“I love you Granny”
I love you Always. Thank you for helping me to become the woman I am today

~Rachel 1998