LETTERS FROM HOME: GRANDMA WAS A PRACTICAL WOMAN

Aug. 16, 2001

Dear Leslie,

My Grandma Ruby was diagnosed with cancer last winter. She was 94. The doctor didn't give us much to hope for. We were ready to accept whatever Grandma wanted to do. She wanted to live to be 100.

Bring on the surgeon. Bring on the chemotherapy.

In the past few weeks, when the cancer came after her again and brought her family nearer, Grandma's mind filled with reminiscences. I asked whether she ever went to church because I knew she didn't go much during the years she lived in Cape Girardeau. She jutted her chin at me and said, "Of course I did." She was still a member of the First Baptist Church in the small town where she grew up, McLeansboro, Ill.

Then a little smile appeared on her face. She said her parents always sent the children off to church on Sunday mornings with a nickel for the collection plate. But they had to walk a mile, and there was a bakery that sold homemade candy between their home and the church.

You could buy a lot of candy for a penny in those days. God got all the change.

Her grandchildren and great-grandchildren all knew that when their birthday arrived so would a card containing two $1 bills. It didn't matter to Grandma that $2 lost its wow power long, long ago. She'd started a tradition with me, the first grandchild, and she was determined that every one of the others would have theirs.

"They expect it," she told me a few days ago.

Grandma was a TV junkie in her latter years, but not the ordinary kind. C-SPAN was her favorite channel. She watched Congressional debates, interviews with authors, almost anything with news in it. She read the newspaper from top to bottom. She wasn't just interested in the headlines. She wanted the grist.

When she offered an opinion or information, she backed it up.

"It's true," she'd say. "I read it."

I don't remember when Grandma began losing her hearing but it has been many years since she could participate in the conversations at family dinners. We laughed, hoping she knew it wasn't at her expense, when she invariably said something someone else at the table had just said. If she couldn't hear, she often got the gist.

Grandma always refused when any of us suggested getting her an appointment for a hearing aid. She could be stubborn, but vanity didn't fit her.

I always wondered if she didn't like the idea of tuning out whatever wasn't necessary for her to hear.

There was talk in the house, in the past few weeks, of what we would do if Grandma became so ill we couldn't take care of her any longer. The subject of nursing homes or the possibility that she would go to live with one of her family members came up, though no one put it directly to her.

Later when I explained she told me defiantly: "This is my house, and I'm going to die in it."

She did while sleeping early Wednesday morning. God bless you, Grandma.

Grandma never had more than just enough money to get by. She was a practical woman, from the flowered sweaters she wore to the little wooden chest she'd kept since the Depression. Grandpa had brought the chest home one day filled with chocolates, an unbelievable treat in those days. Grandma kept her jewelry in it.

A few days ago, my mother opened the chest looking for something and saw two $1 bills sitting in the first tray. She asked Grandma what they were for.

She always kept $2 in the chest, Grandma explained, to make sure she always had enough money for the next grandchild's birthday.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.