Thinking of my Lily

My grandmother Lily's trademark was her fire engine red hair. I never saw her without it. She's going to be 90 years old in July and for the past 18 months has been under the care of a lady in the Texas Hill Country. It's a small place with maybe room for three or four people there, the way I understand it. I haven't been. Once Lily's mind forgot us I couldn't bring myself to go..I am so far away so when I think of her I am thinking of her joining my nana and papa in heaven. They too lived to be in their 90's ,but weren't sick long when they passed away and had their minds till the end..My dad visits Lily and says that it is hard that she's terribly weak and he can't believe she's still holding on, and her hair is white.. White. that I never wanted to picture.. It will be two years in March since I have seen her. A lifetime for me and my Lily.. I went to visit her the last time with my mom, when she was still living on her own in a little fancy trailer park called "The Take it Easy" trailer park.. Classic. So Lily. We laughed and I reminded her who people were in the pictures we looked at..she was still Lily.She had a little dog living with her, that I'm sure she was overmedicating and feeding raw carrots and canned green beans but that was her way. When I grew up she always had a teacup poodle with a French name. Collette, Suzette, and way back I remember Nanette, although funnily Nanette was a shepard mix.

Lily has lived a pretty hard life, but the part of it that I've been alive for I remember her enjoying quite a bit. And as a child I never knew of the tragedies and series of bad decisions that dictated her life up to that point. It was kept secret. And for that I'm thankful. As I grew older I learned more and was able to process that as a young adult, a college student, a grown woman.. not have to be burdened with that heaviness as a child. I'm thankful that sitting way over here in the hills of Tennessee I can think back to Christmas's and Thanksgiving at my Lily's and my great grandparents and all the summer vacations she traveled with us and call up not just one great memory but too many to count.

Her little matchbox house

where we sat in front of a box television the size of a mini cooper and watched "The Carol Burnett Show" wrapped up in a multi colored afghan on a scratchy couch in front of a giant window unit air conditioner.

The Leroy Baptist/Methodist Church

where we went when we were in town and apparently couldn't tell the difference between being a Baptist and a Methodist because the services were supposed to be different and I never noticed. Where we went to the Harvest Festivals and ran barefoot thru the church yard with the other families kids, half of whom we were cousins, second cousins, third cousins with..These pics were taken when my sister and I drove down to take pictures in Leroy and got stopped trying to go inside the old Leroy Bank, ( to our credit the door was broken and wide open and was really too dangerous to be walking around in) which dates back to the Bonnie and clyde days.. a privately owned bank.. you think Archer City is small.. or any small Texas town.. Welcome to Leroy. SMALL. 500 people small.

My Lily lived right next door to her parents for my entire childhood. If you went to Baylor with me you probably met Lily and Nana and Nana's amazing biscuits and gravy and fried chicken..(they loved feeding us and believe me, we were sick of Ramen and canned green beans) You won't recognize my Nana holding my Lily in the pick above.. This one is probably more familiar

and Nana's house

which was actually painted with black trim see here..

I've posted this pic before.. and I just marvel at my hippie dad wearing his best Ward Cleaver clothes.. I know he is miserable in them..


Distant relatives are living in Nana and Papaw's house now and I don't know why they didn't just let us walk right in, when we pulled up with six kids an invitation to take a walk down memory lane with us.. I really just wanted to see how small that house was.. we crammed so many people in there on the holidays.. and my Lily stood in the kitchen and always rinsed the dishes and dried .that was her job. I remember that.