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.

Rain, Rain: Go Away

When Shannon told me that Mama called today before I got home from work, I knew it wasn't a good thing. Any time she calls when she knows I'm probably not home, someone's either dead or nearly there. She has my office number, but doesn't have it on her cell phone, and she doesn't want to call me at work with bad news.

The long and short is that my grandmother, her mother, may not make it through the night. So I very probably will be taking my happy ass up to Tennessee some time in the next few days. It'll be a short visit: I can't be away from home too long right now.

We're finalizing audit at work, and Shannon's sister-in-law had her uterus taken out today. I have responsibilities and obligations 750 miles apart from each other, so it'll be tightrope meeting them all. If Daddy were still alive or Morgan (my niece) would be there, I wouldn't worry so much about going home. But he isn't, and she probably can't be.

My little sister is showing herself to be insane, once again, and my older one might or might not go. And if she shows up with her herd of ill-behaved dogs, it'll just make things worse.

For Mama, it'll be something of a relief to see Grandma go, I think. She's been in a nursing home not really knowing who she is for too many years. And as Mama told me tonight, " She's had a long, long life."

But at the same time, I can't imagine that it's ever easy to let go of a parent under any circumstance.

We'll go see Shannon's sister-in-law tomorrow evening, assuming that she's up to it. Then I'll probably start making preparations to be gone for a few days. I don't see an alternative right now.

It's a long trip, but I seem to cycle from one NPR station to the next up the line the whole way there. I'll be caught up on the news, if nothing else. Then I'll come back and finish up loose ends at work. There aren't too many, and if I need to, I'll go back tomorrow evening and tie nice, neat little bows on them.

It don't seem to rain when it don't pour. And right now, I'm desperately in need of a towel and some dry clothes.

The Daddy Plants

When daddy died a little over a year ago, food, plants and (believe it or not) ceramics started showing up at Mama's house. We ate the food (most of it, at least--I brought some of the good Southern pork shoulder that you can't get in Texas back home), and she put the ceramics up on a shelf in the living room. But the plants were taking over her living room. It looked like a florist shop.

When I left to come back home, she insisted that I take one of them with me. I told her I'd probably just kill it. I'm not real good with house plants. Still, she insisted.

I picked out a peace lily. She had another 3 or 4, so I figured she probably wouldn't miss the one I took.

I brought my plant back home, and it immediately started to die. It's not my forte, but I was determined to keep this one alive.

So I went to Lowe's and got some fertilizer stakes. The plant perked up real good. So good that I had to split it into two pieces and put them in different pots.

They languished at first, not getting enough light. The two did not look happy in any way. They were living in a poorly-lit dining room. So I decided to take them outside.

That worked for a while. As long as I kept them watered. They started growing and turning a shade of dark green that looked healthy instead of getting brown around the edges of their leaves.

Then we had a hurricane watch. The storm was tracking straight for us, so I cleared most of everything off the porch, including the plants that seemed to weigh so much more than they ever did before.

And I waited.

Turns out the best place to be in a hurricane is on the dry side. As Ike was barreling in, a strong cold front was coming in just as fast from the Rockies. The storm left most of Galveston in ruins and gave Houston the battering that we'd been expecting in Austin. (It took a sharp turn to the north-east, and Mama ended up getting more weather out of it in Tennessee than we did.)

Once it was clear that the hurricane was going to leave us breezy and dry, I put the plants back out on the front porch, again. It's well-shaded, so they get the diffused light they love. And it's been cool enough (not much over 90) that they haven't wilted.

So now, not only do they dress up our porch, they're thriving.

It's nice. Every time I walk out the front door or come in it, I see them. And they remind me of him. And of the continuity of life.

He's gone in one way, but he's still here in many, many others.

As I told my co-workers when thanking them for the flowers they sent, "I wish you all could have known him. And in a way, you do. He's responsible for the better parts of me."

And he's here in my plants.

Mama planted the crepe myrtle someone sent out in the front yard and put the potted bonsai on the front porch. All where she can see them just by walking outside.

And she gave 2 of the other lily's to my sisters. I don't know what they've done with them, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that they've done pretty much like me.

I know too many people who have too many bad things to say about their fathers, but I cannot join their chorus. Mine was good and honorable and hard-working.

That, by the way, is the measure of a man.

He's gone, but I have what he taught me, mostly by example, so he won't die until I do. And even then, he'll probably go on in my niece and oldest nephew (he raised them, too).

What I and my mother and sisters have left, other than the lessons on how to live life, are the plants.

The Daddy plants.

Moo, Moo

Chase is buying Washington Mutual, the country's largest saving and loan. Since WaMu's stock has been down-graded to below junk, it's worth almost nothing. The announcement came after close of business today, most likely because the Fed typically closes down banks and S&L's on Friday.


Since I wrote that a few minutes ago, I've learned that WaMu got shut down on a Thursday. There had been an un-reported run on the bank beginning September 15. When it's bad enough that a bank gets shut down other than on a Friday, going against regular Fed policy, it's really, really, really bad.

Either that, or they're playing politics and trying to press the issue of a bailout on their terms with Congress. First they had a deal, and now they may or may not.

Either way, it's not good news.

I have been predicting the failure of Washington Mutual for months now, as their stock has gone down and down and then down some more, finally settling at 5% of what it was worth 6 or 8 months ago before it got shut down. And like most of this financial fiasco, watching them bleed to death has been like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

I am afraid that today's monumental events are a harbinger of things to come: a cascading series of bank failures that could possibly overwhelm even the FDIC. Chase and Bank of America can't buy every failing bank and financial institution. Most of them are going to fail the old-fashioned way.

Flat on their faces.

My boss, who's been around for a long time (I won't reveal her age as a point of discretion and honor), says we're living in unusual times. She's been around for a while and seen pretty much everything. She stood in line to get company money from a failed S&L back when they all melted down.

She sees the world through the lens of history and experience. Her instincts are usually right.

She's nervous, so I'm scared.