New Life and Remembering an Old One

My sweet grandmother, my Mema, went to be with Jesus on Thursday.  Because of the pregnancy and living so far away, we were not able to travel to Tennessee to attend her funeral today.  I wish these boys could have known her, she was such a wonderful, sweet lady.  She lived a long life of 89 years and about 45 of those were spent missing her dear husband and the love of her life, Frank, who died in 1966, when my Mom was only 16.  I know they are having a time in Heaven now catching up!  I'm sure they're already playing jokes on each other, too!  We love you so much, Mema, and can't wait to see you again one day.

Frank and Blanche O'Connor



I wrote this several years ago about Mema.  Mom included it in the memorial service program.

Mema is…

-          Daughter, sister, wife, mother, Mema, Aunt Bea

-          The snowball bush

-          Red, yellow, green and blue Queen Anne’s lace dyed with food coloring after picking them off the side of the road

-          TN irises

-          Playhouses

-          Family heirlooms with a note for where it came from and who it goes to

-          Christmas Eve dinner

-          Christmas morning breakfast with sausage pinwheels and fruit salad

-          Vegetable beef soup with macaroni

-          Egg salad sandwiches

-          Pineapple slice on lettuce with mayonnaise and cheese – everything had mayonnaise!

-          Driving lessons on Saturday morning in Sam Houston parking lot

-          Patriotism

-          Indescribable pride and undying love for her husband

-          5 AM coffee and the newspaper at the kitchen bar

-          Her pear tree

-          Buttercups

-          Naps (for me) under her coffee table in the front of the TV

-          Love of Wilson County and her Good ‘Ol Leb-a-non (emphasis on the “A”)

-          Cut off heads of Wendy and me in front of Charlie Daniels’ mailbox – of course you couldn’t see his house from the mailbox!

-          Yard sales

-          Church bus trips

-          Fried corn bread in her corn-shaped cast iron pan

-          Canta-lana-lana-loupe

-          “her” pew at church

-          Hand-written letters

-          Great love for her family

-          Cuckoo clock

-          Fruit stripe gum

-          Saturday morning hair appointments

-          A baseball bat by the front door

-          $2 bills, always cleverly given

-          100 $1 bills wadded up in a gift bag or in an old purse for Christmas

-          The Lebanon Democrat

-          War bride

-          Chicken and dumplins

-          Boiled custard

-          Fried corn

-          Beans and greens

-          Strawberries

-          Hi Ho Cherry O

-          Hand-made ceramics

-          “toughen up those hands, girl” – because our hands WERE the dishwasher

-          Fostoria glassware

-          Ice cream or cool whip on everything

-          Clip-on earrings

-          Lover of family pictures

-          Scotch tape

-          Joke-player

-          Rubber bands on the door knobs

-          A pot of beans cooking all day on the stove

-          Great, great love for her girls

We love you, Mema, and can’t wait to see you again soon.



Jim and I built 2 raised-bed gardens at the end of Summer last year.  We have great dreams of a bounty this year!  We can't wait to carry on this tradition every year and teach our boys how to use their hands in this way.  I can remember helping Mom in the huge garden she had for several Summers.  Nothing thrilled me more than to plant the seeds and then see them actually produce fruit after time and much care.  I think there is something spiritual about planting a garden, whether for food or beautiful flowers.  It's a reminder that, year after year, God will continue to provide our every need.  It takes work and devotion from us, His people, as well.  We are His garden that He constantly feeds, prunes, nurtures, grows, and I love that He allows us that privilege ourselves, whether it be a physical garden, our lives or with our own children.