Granny has been on my mind a lot lately. I'm not exactly sure why, but she has come up in conversation in our family or come to mind more than usual. I think about her everyday and miss her very much. I remembered that after my trip home to NC last summer, I said I would write about the gift I received there-and I never did. So, here goes.
Granny died the day we were scheduled to leave NC to move to TX. We stayed for her memorial service and started our drive out here the very next day. We even spent the last few nights in NC in her house and Joe and I slept in her bed. The girls slept in the twin beds they slept in many times while spending the night there-which are the same beds my sister and I used growing up. Because of the timing of her death, once we got to TX and began to get settled, I would have to remind myself that she really was gone. It wasn't just that I was in TX and she was back home. I couldn't pick up the phone and call her and I couldn't share things with her. (But I can with my Dad, her son, and I'm very thankful for that. ) So, last summer when I went home for the first time since our move, I knew she wasn't going to be there and I was doing alright. Until the first time I drove by her house and pulled in the driveway. It had been sold, but no one was living in it yet. I wonder how many times I've pulled in that driveway......The house had been cleaned out a few months before. When I went to visit my sister on that same trip, she gave me the gift. I knew that Granny was saving letters we had sent to her over the years, but I had no idea how many it would be. There were letters I had written to her all the way back to when I was 9-which is how old I was the first time I moved away from her and other family in NC. It is simply amazing to read those letters and literally watch me grow up through what I chose to write about. And to be reminded of events that I had totally forgotten about. The letters go all the way through until around 1997-which was when we first got the internet and email in our home. But then she continued to save drawings and notes we would send her from the girls, and thank you notes, and she even printed out emails with extra special news and saved them. Also, every single birthday card and Mother's Day Card she ever received were there, too. I am so thankful to have these letters. On one of the envelopes-she said every envelope, too-she had written, "Melene has just met Joe." I would love to know if she wrote that on there immediately because she knew he was the one after reading that letter, or if she added it later. There were even some letters written to Granny from my Mom, when my Mom was a newlywed married to my Dad and she wrote about how good he was to her and how excited she was to be pregnant with me, and then letters about what a good baby I was-and a couple about how bad I was. Imgaine! My parents divorced when I was 8, so those letters are a treasure to me as well.
This summer, after my trip, I was cleaning out our attic and found letters FROM Granny to me. I was so grateful to find them again-to see her handwriting and know for sure I had those letters. There is no way I could have kept every letter she ever wrote me. When we were in Germany for 3 and half years, I know she wrote me at least once a week-and sent lots of care packages. I am excited to share these letters with my girls over the years and so thankful Granny did save all of them. Having those letters to go through and read during my time at home last summer was almost as good as having her there, too.
