My Nannie

Why is it that life happens right before our very eyes but all too often we are so caught up with things that we don’t really live it? When I watch old videos from my childhood I can’t help but think of all of my insecurities that I had as a young teen, some of the very same ones that I hold on to today. I also can’t help but see how finite life is and how very quickly it passes right before our eyes, like a speeding bullet. I enjoy watching these videos, they remind me of who I was and who I wanted to be. They remind me of my childhood, when things were so much simpler. But best of all I can see and hear sweet family members who’ve left this earth.

 

I see my sweet Nannie, who was as frail as a china doll but as strong as an ox. She was maybe 100 pounds soaking wet, with snuff dripping from the corners of her mouth. She dipped Bruton Smith snuff and always did it so discreetly. She couldn’t hear worth a doodle because when she was in the second grade, she had to quit school to go work in the cotton mills. With children of my own around that age, I can’t fathom the fortitude that it must have taken her to be able to withstand such hazardous work at such a young age. But she didn’t have a choice. Her mother died of yellow fever and with a family of 10 children, there weren’t many options for families during that time. The children had to go to work to help put food on their table.

 

Nannie had a little red leather bible with worn pages and corners that bore snuffy fingerprints. She told me that she learned to read and write from her brother. He used a stick to draw letters in the dirt to teach the smaller children how to read. The amazing part is that her brother must have been a good teacher because she would write lengthy letters to her sisters with few mistakes. Imagine having to learn how to read and write with sticks and dirt.

 

For the longest time, I thought that old age caused you to lose your big toe because she was missing hers. Truth was, however, that she shot it off. She was trying to load a shotgun on the edge of her porch when the gun went off, taking her toe with it. Heaven only knows what she was trying to shoot. As a child, I tried to imagine how such a small little lady could possibly load a shotgun but she wasn’t always little and frail. She lived through the Great Depression and if that didn’t harden your backbone, nothing would.

 

She had a heart problem and withstood open heart surgery at the age of 84. When the doctors asked her what she wanted to do, she very knowingly said that she wasn’t living in pain the rest of her days and proceeded with the risky surgery. Her faith was as big as the universe and her reasons to have faith sometimes seemed as small as that mustard seed. I never once saw her lose hope and she rejoiced in the face of tribulation. I can remember how she always had me read the Bible to her but I always did it so hastily. I was too young to know the perils of life and how she wouldn’t always be around. I was too young to realize that I took her for granted.

 

I can remember that Nannie would play games with me out in the yard with just our imaginations. She would pretend to be Scooby Doo while I would be Shaggy and we’d look for clues until sundown. Nannie once let me cut a tree down with a machete and talked me through making a rope swing. When I would get into the honeybees, as I inevitably did, and would get that nasty sting, she’d take her finger and swipe it through her cheek. Out it would come, covered in snuff, and then she’d dob the snuff onto the sting. I’d go back to playing and she’d tend to her chickens. At one time, she had almost 100 chickens and one of the meanest roosters that had ever walked the face of the earth. The rooster hated my guts and every time I would go to gather the eggs, that rooster would pounce on me like a spider monkey.

 

Nannie lived with us and as a child, I thought of her presence more as a nuisance at times, much like a sibling relationship. I remember when she had a stroke and had to eat baby food until she learned how to swallow solid foods again. With a child-like mentality, I thought it was rather humorous and sometimes teased her about it. But, boy did she show me! That frail, little lady regained almost every bit of her movement and cognitive abilities. She had the most positive attitude, proclaiming that she was trying each and every day, and improving day by day. I remember she always had so many friends who checked in on her in times of sickness. I would sometimes answer the phone and those little old ladies would just go on and on about how sweet “Nettie” was. Nettie was her nickname. Her real name was Mary Jeannette but nobody ever called her that. Nannie. Big Mama. Nettie. Maw Maw. She was all of those and more to those who loved her.

 

She was the voice of reason when my mama decided to take a short cut to avoid a bridge that was out. My mama swore that she knew the way but before long we ended up in a cow pasture. Nannie told her that taking short cuts always led you into trouble and told her to take the road that she knew, it was safer. When my mama’s station wagon was making a funny noise, she told her that she could feel that there was something wrong by the way the tires went round and round. My mama brushed it off, after all Nannie had never driven a car a day in her life. But low and behold, her front right tire–the tire on the passenger side–had something wrong with it.

 

I looked forward to Christmas Day every year with more excitement than most children as that meant not only toys from Santa, but also our annual trip to Tampa. My uncle lived in Tampa and after Christmas Day lunch, we’d all pile in the car and head down the road. My mama had a big Buick station wagon that had room for what seemed like a hundred people. Nannie would always go with us, even when she was at her sickest. Almost every year while we were down there, we’d also go to Disney World and we’d push Nannie around in a wheelchair. There weren’t many rides that she wouldn’t attempt and we’d usually stay until dark. I can remember one night we stayed in the park all day and had not eaten supper. The only place that was open was a Black Angus Steakhouse which was also home to a very swinging lounge. With my mama on one side of her and my aunt holding her other arm, Nannie stumbled in the door. I can imagine we were a pretty sight. The lounge singer was belting out a loud rendition of “How Much is That Doggie in the Window?” We ordered our dinner and they brought out a salad. Then, a dish of sorbet; to cleanse the pallet. Nannie had a disappointed look on her face as she said to everyone, “You mean all we’re gonna get is a salad?” She thought the sorbet was dessert and was quite relieved when the rest of the meal came.

 

One of my fondest memories of Nannie was one of my last. We went to Mexico Beach, Florida for the week. I was older, almost fourteen, and old enough to know that she wasn’t feeling her best. She made the most of the trip, even wearing Ray-Ban sunglasses on the ride down there. She went fishing a few times, we went to Panama City to eat dinner, and we just enjoyed the time we spent. I was “coming of age” and learning to appreciate what my Nannie really meant to me. I was briefly able to understand her with the depth and maturity that I wish I had only been able to experience longer.

 

When we returned to Georgia, we took her to visit for the week with her two sisters, the final three were together. Of the ten siblings, Nannie and her two sisters were the only ones still living. Two days after we dropped her off, we received a frantic call from my great-aunt. “We can’t wake Nettie. She will look at us but she won’t talk. Something is wrong.” My mom and I drove the 45 minute drive from Columbus, Georgia to LaGrange, Georgia. I didn’t get out of the car. I sat there in silence with tears flowing from my eyes. I knew that it was the end. My mama and my aunts toted Nannie to the car and we drove back to the hospital in Columbus. She could look at you but she just couldn’t talk. At the hospital, they really didn’t know what had happened, other than a suspected stroke. She laid in a hospital bed for a day or so before finally slipping away. She had fought the good fight but she was reaping her reward for her faith-filled life.

 

I can remember the funeral and the smell of flowers overwhelming me. The church sang, “Victory in Jesus” and to this day, I cannot sing that song without crying. And I can also remember that there wasn’t a single empty seat at the funeral. Between her family and her friends, they all expressed their sorrow. What I remember the most were the many people who came to me and told me stories of why my Nannie was important to them. There were the people that she had taught their Sunday School classes and the people that she had comforted in their times of sorrow. There were people who talked about how she never judged them for where they were in life but that she inspired them to do better. I learned more about her in her death than I had ever known during her life.

 

She may be gone but her life lives on in me and encourages me to become the person that I should be. It is her strong will, yet gentle spirit that inspires me to continually strive to climb that mountain, jump that hurdle. If she could live 86 years with the many obstacles that she faced throughout her life, I have an obligation to history to do the very best in this life. As she would often say, “To who much is given, much is expected.” Much has been given, not just in material things, but in the memories and experiences that only come through someone who loved me as much as my Nannie.