MIMI

My Number One Fan!!!
Have you ever had anyone in your life that you just know loves you so much that it causes your heart to ache? Well for me that would be my late grandmother, otherwise known as MIMI.

You see, in my eyes, Mimi is a superhero of sorts. The goddess of domestication. She could cook, clean like no tommorrow, sew and she was actually the only person I ever knew that ironed underwear. She had a garden in the summer (up at the lake where all of us grandkids spent most of our time), she canned the vegetables and fruit from the garden in the fall, she cooked the vegetables in the winter and she started getting ready for the garden again the next spring.
She raised 2 children when my mother and aunt were small, then came the grandkids, there were 5 of us. Most of the time we were all together at her house, as she kept us ALL, while our mothers went back to nursing school. She also cared for her mother at the time, who had fallen ill and was completely bed ridden from a stroke.

After I had my daughter and there was only one of her, I asked my grandmother "With all of the grandkids and your sick mother here, how did you not jump out of a window", she just laughed and told me she was just made to do that kind of thing and that she wouldn't have had it any other way.

Mimi told me once "Love is not sex or money or thinking he's cute, love is sitting side by side on your porch when your older and looking back at all the crazy things life has thrown at you and being able to look into your spouses eyes and say Can you believe we've made it through all of this together, the ups, the downs the goods and the bads." And as I've gotten older and been married for almost eight years, I've realized she was right.

Mimi also taught me to always look someone in the eye when you talk to them, and to this day I still have trouble not looking at someone dead on when we talk. She taught me how to cook, I always called her when I had a question about this or that. She and Martha Stewart were on a first name basis, every day at 11 sharp she'd say, "Oh, I've gotta go tape Martha", this was the older show, pre-prison. The day "Martha" got in trouble I called Mimi and asked her what she thought. She told me that although what "Martha" did was wrong, she wasn't doing anything everyone else was doing, she just got caught."

This lady was such a great cook that preachers spoke of her sour cream pound cake on the pulpit. I know I'll probably never taste food like she cooked again. I have a pressure cooker that I use alot (she gave me my first one) and she always used one at her house, to this day I can't hear that thing chugging without thinking of her. Also her grandfather clock at her house. I've never heard that chime anywhere else in the world and I probably won't. It's still at Mimi and Grandaddy's house, with my Grandaddy (who loved and cherished her until her final hours).

So basically this is just a little tribute to her. I've really been thinking about her lately, her birthday was October 25th, she has been gone 6 months on November 26th. She was an intricate part of my life as well as my whole family. She was the glue that bound us together. I'll miss and love her forever. Here's to you Mimi.