My Grandmother

This morning I decided to blog again. I have been gone because my grandmother passed earlier this week. It was not a shock, but it was still a hard time.  My grandmother was 89 years old and would have been 90 in a couple of months. She had been in a nursing home for about a year and she was slowly fading away.

I grew up having both my grandmothers in my life and I loved them both so much, but they were both so different. One thing they had in common was the fact that they loved their grandchildren and not matter what we did (even if we made them mad) they showed us that they loved us unconditionally.

When my grandmother passed last week it caused me to do a lot of thinking and remembering. My grandmother was a bad....SHUT YO MOUTH! (had to put it in). She served in the Women's Army Corp during World War II, she dropped out of high school to take care of family, but later got her GED (or the equivalent back then) and went and got her college degree from Lemoyne Owen College an HBCU in Memphis, and she got her Master's Degree in Education from Memphis State (now University of Memphis) along side my mother.  She raised 2 children as a single parent and she taught for over 30 years in the Memphis City School System. She traveled the world and had so many talents....one was sewing and making porcelain dolls.

This was my favorite doll of hers!

She had so many talents and just named a few of her impact in life. Like I said earlier she was an great grandmother. She cared and provided for us and set an example of how to live for her family and everyone she impacted.  I have listed her accomplishments in life, but she was so much more. When you think about she was a BLACK WOMAN who accomplished all these things back in the day when blacks and women had so many strikes against them said a whole lot.

I loved her for the woman she was and the impact that she made in my life. I know she is at peace. She will be missed, but I know she lived a life that anyone would be proud of....the good and the bad.

One of my favorite and funniest stories I can remember about her is when I graduated from Vanderbilt University. She was so proud.  I even got her a Vanderbilt grandparent shirt while I was in college.  She had been to campus a few times while I was there, but at graduation there were so many people. I was coming out of my dorm and my grandmother said (fortunately no one heard her) "What are all these peckerwoods doing here?" I still laugh at that statement. She knew I went to a majority institution, but her seeing so many of them made her realize it.  I just laughed...because I was taking her to introduce her to my "white grandmother" who served as a mentor and good friend while I was in college.

I hope I continue to make my grandmother proud as she made me proud, by being the best grandmother I could ever had!

oh.....well continue the 30 Day Blog Challenge later. Going back to work and a lot to do. I will pick up where I left off. Trying to get back to normal.