My grandmother, Helen Joyce Breazeale, nee Glover, departed from us May 7, 2010. She was 88 years old. I deeply regret not being able to spend as much time with her in the past few years. She was admitted to a nursing home a few years ago because her being as she was, was not taking her medicine like she should have and needed to helped on a more routine basis. It’s taken me a while to write this. I first started a draft of this blog posting on May 9, 2010 and now today is December 29, 2010.
My grandmother was a unique individual. She was a single parent of two girls in an era that it was not appropriate to be a single parent. But she always had a life full of a lot of responsibility. Being one of the oldest in a family with 8 children, she often times had to take care of her younger siblings. She learned early on by taking care of a large family, to cook for a large family. I remember quite frequently her cooking dinner for our much smaller family, but there were always plenty of leftovers. Not that we minded. Especially when it was one of her specialties. The main thing I will miss from her cooking is her chicken and dumplings. I have tried, and failed, on my occasions to duplicate her chicken and dumplings. I came close a few months ago. It tasted close to hers, although I know there’s probably some top secret ingredient I was missing because she would never give you the entire recipe.
My grandmother’s personality will be missed the most. Of all my family members, I believe that I favor her the most. A rather wicked sense of humor, she and I often found the same things funny, things that most people would not laugh at. Along with that wicked sense of humor came a wicked laugh. My husband has told me that it sounds like a wicked witch laugh, which makes me laugh even more. If you can’t laugh at yourself or other people and the silly things they do, what can you laugh at?
Granny had a hard life. She had a crippling case of juvenile arthritis when she was young, so severe that she had to drop out of school. But she persevered and managed to get through it and lead an active life, even though arthritis gave her problems her entire life. She had both hips replaced and her hands operated on as a result of the arthritis. My hands tend to ache really bad when its cold, and when they do, it reminds me of the pain my grandmother went through.
As part of my grandmother’s final wishes, our family is planning on distributing her ashes from “the highest point in Daisetta”. Daisetta, Texas is where she grew up. I’m not sure if its that wicked sense of humor again because Daisetta is about as flat as a plain, so unless we find a mole hill to stand on, those ashes are just going to get spread in a high wind!
I love you granny!
