Grandmother Stuff...(RIP)

On Friday, my grandmother from my father's side passed away. I was already in one of the worst moods for an entire week. Now, this news has hit me pretty hard. I've been sleeping 10+ hours and I haven't been compelled to get up. As you get older, more and more people seem to die around you. It is the sad truth about life.

She was old fashion in every way. She was a house wife and didn't learn to drive, and never did. She grew up in a time when you were supposed to get married and be a house wife. Since I grew up in a more moderate household, I didn't know how to take the old fashion views.

She was known as our grandmother from Memphis.

She was a nice person overall and did care about her family. I sort of had a distance with her after the falling out with my father. I didn't go to Memphis as much when I got older because of jobs and other commitments.

There were a few things I remembered about her though.

-Do you have a girlfriend?: Above anything else, she would constantly ask me about my sorry love life. She was always interested in me getting a date and getting married. She wanted grand children.  Well, that's not going to happen, because I am not going to get married.  

Old people seem to think that getting a girlfriend/boyfriend was as easy as snapping your fingers. I would have to remind her that I was single a lot of the time and that women had to actually like you in order to go out with them. 

 I remember my mother sending her my junior prom pictures and she as thrilled I had a “date”. I guess she wasn't happy with me not going to my senor prom.

-Religious: My grandmother was a religious person. You couldn't say things like “hell” around her and other offending things. I remember telling her that I didn't believe in God and I was an atheists. She was shocked and couldn't believe there was someone out there that didn't believe in her God. 

 I was a little more mean when it came to religion. I wanted to argue and debate with religious folks in my younger days.  I got a thrill out of telling religious folks I didn't believe in God.  Now, I simply don't care if you believe in a god or what you think of me being a non-believer. I knew deep down that she it really bothered her that I was an atheists. She would bring it up from time to time.

Despite these things, she was my grandmother and she did care about me. She always wanted me to “patch” things up with my father. (That won't happen) It was one of those things that bothered her. Generally, she was a nice person and was a “true” Christian. She would cook big southern dinners on Sundays after church and her family in Memphis was always very close...if dysfunctional.

While we didn't see eye to eye on her religious views, I have to respect her for sticking to them to the very end.

I am not looking forward to going to Memphis and dealing with all the history and drama in that family structure. There are some really good people there, it is just that I can't deal with some of the other things. Keep in mind, she probably won't get buried until Friday at the most. If you've dealt with black family funerals, you know how all this works. There is a lot of politics and other things to deal with. So, yeah I am a little depressed. She will be missed.