Jewel in the Crown

It happened this morning: my grandmother died.

Jewel Mae Michael Blackshire Western passed on to her reward, and I have every confidence that it will be a great one.

She didn't amass a fortune in this life, nor did she seek to. She lived simply and responsibly, as many who lived through the Great Depression have done. But her inheritance in heaven will be substantial.

She's going to have to get used to being a rich lady.

When I was in college about a half-hour or so from her, I'd drop by in the afternoons on a random basis. It was usually the same: she'd get me a glass of iced tea, we'd go out to the front yard to sit under enormous trees, and then we'd talk. She told me stories about the past, and I told her what was going on in my young life.

And before I went back to school, she'd bag me up whatever produce they had, couldn't sell, but was still good.

It was always hard to get out of Grannie's house without one of those bags. Didn't matter much who you were.

My grandfather died before I was born, and she remarried when I was about 4. Grandpa Western, her new husband, was in the produce business, so she ended up in the produce business by default. And they prospered.

Whenever something was in season, they always had the best stuff around. They never made huge amounts of money, but they made enough. I don't know that they wanted for anything, and that in and of itself is an accomplishment.

And on any given weekend, there was no telling who would show up at her house unannounced. 15-20 wasn't unusual. When it came time to eat, there wasn't hardly any room to put a plate on the table because it had so much food on it.

Cakes and pies (she always had a selection in the freezer) went on one end of the kitchen counter, and tea glasses went on the other. At some point, she got a piece of plywood to put over the sink so she could use that space, too.

I remember graduating from one of the kiddie tables to the adult one very well. Sitting at the main table meant I was grown up. (I wasn't, of course, but it made me feel that way.)

She wasn't just a gracious and tolerant hostess, though. Grannie was ahead of her time on a couple issues.

One that many people today might not understand the significance of was her use of the word "negra" as opposed to the other one that I'm not going to use. All her life, she had heard people using that unspecified other derogatory word to refer to people of color. It would probably be perceived as derogatory by many people today, but in her day, “negra” was a respectful way to refer to a person of color. She never graduated to "negro" or "black", and certainly not "African-American". In her mind, she was using respectful language.

The other one that sticks out is the pre-nup she had Grandpa Western sign. It said that all of her assets at the time of their marriage (including the house and land) would convey to her children only. It gave him a life-hold estate on the property, but that was all. On the copy I saw of it, he had written "I did it for love."

Grannie's house sits about a quarter mile off the highway and is surrounded on 3 sides by farm and pasture land. The property backs up to a railroad track and, beyond that, a military arsenal. Whenever there was a rumble in the air, we never knew if it was thunder or them testing munitions next door.

She didn't get an air conditioner until Grandpa Western started to get sick with respiratory problems, so we spent a lot of time in the front yard under those trees. But I don't ever remember not feeling comfortable in that big old house of hers. Tall ceilings, big windows, lots of shade (the front yard was covered in moss because it was too shady for grass to grow) and fans always sufficed.

And I spent a bunch of time there. My cousins and I always seemed to end up in the creek that ran between the house and highway, even though we weren't supposed to be down there. And it got really dark and quiet at night. As the house settled in the cool night air, it creaked and made noises like footsteps in the distance. And in the winter, parts of it get cold, cold, cold. The only heat was a floor furnace in the living room. Some of the best sleep I’ve ever gotten was under the blankets and quilts in the back bedroom where it wasn’t much warmer than a cold, Tennessee winter night.

I miss that place as much as I've missed my grandmother for years.

When Grandpa died, she was already getting a little dotty. I remember her not being able to remember the word for "table", so she said "the thing with 4 legs and a top that sits on the floor". Not long after, she started to get worse. The rest is water under the bridge.

She got worse and worse and worse over the course of the better part of a decade.

I've often wondered whether it's easier to live with someone dieing over a long period of time or going suddenly. I think that both scenarios have their own unique pain. Watching someone die in slow motion is as hard as watching it happen suddenly. They just hurt differently.

Still, the most important part isn't death or how it happens. It's life and how it's been lived. The legacy left behind. The impact one has had on other people.

She lives on in me, my mother, sisters, niece, nephews, her grandkids and great-great-grandkids. Whether we realize it or not, we've all taken some of her with us.

She was a great woman. May she rest in peace and enjoy her well-earned rewards.