It's all about Grace

Growing up we all have that favorite person or memory that make us secretly smile, out of nowhere. The sharp crisp tones of the ice cream truck driving through the neighborhoods, as your friends run down the street with visions of strawberry drizzle on a cone dripping of summer fun or curled on the couch during a passionate thunder storm with old comfortable friends of college day blankets and well turned pages of your favorite book. 

For me, simply it's my Granny Grace.  Not the typical vision of grandmothers that come to mind surrounded by the warm smell of cookies, reading your bed time stories or pushing you in the swing.  Not our Grace.  Granny always smelled of Oscar De La Renta, cooking gumbo or fried chicken, passing one on a much deserved soul and solving the never ending turmoils of our family with a heart bigger than the heavens themselves. 

Everybody was family....

It didn't matter who you were or how you got there, you were family and Grace was Granny.  My earliest memory was in Belle Chase and I must have been at least 5 or 6 years old living with my grandparents Valton and Zuma Lee Lewallen.  My parents were divorced and I was staying at my Aunt Kitten's house because my dad was in the Army and things just weren't good in Belle Chase.  At this time, the grand rents were taking a trip to Spain and even Cliffie went along, so Granny came to stay in Belle Chase.  It was the first time I can ever remember having fun or just being a kid without fear or worry. 

We jumped rope, sat in the kitchen floor and played jacks and Granny taught me how to read. For once I was the pretty girl instead of just doing everything wrong by existing.  No locked closet doors, hair being cut off, no being smacked for pushing up my sleeves on a shirt to hot to wear in the summer time, or fear of being attacked in a bathroom....it was just two girls having fun.  How I wanted to be a part of that family because this is what grandmothers were suppose to be like.  It brings a tear to me now because now I don't know if I ever told Granny how much that impacted me or that I even remembered those days, but the comforting thought is...I think in her own special way...she always knew.

My brother and sister and I did become a part of that family and Granny has saved me many, many times after that.  Her passing is something still hard for me to talk about, even knowing she is with me in so many ways...still it's just hard to put into words.  She loved her family with every breath she drew and she was loved in return.  I find myself thinking of her especially now as my cousin is about to have her baby and how I wish Granny could see him, knowing how special and hard this is going to be for Kathy, but then I realize Gran's already seen him and that too brings a smile to my face. 

Thank you Granny and I miss you!