The majority of my columns are about the fun and crazy parts of my life.
I have always been honest and up front about what’s happening in my life.
But this is your warning: this is a sad column.
My Grandma (Mama) has passed away.
My heart is broken.
Although due to dementia, she has not been able to be the Mama of my childhood, she was still my Mama.
When I think of the word Grandma, I think of pie baking, story reading, apron-wearing older ladies.
My Mama was her own version of a Grandma.
She raised three amazing daughters on her own, and had a career in an era when most moms stayed at home.
All three of her daughters became spectacular mothers and were women to be proud of.
While I know she had a whole life before my birth, and was even someone else’s Mama first, all I remember is her as my Mama, and all the things I loved about her.
She took me to eat at Chinese restaurants and we watched Cary Grant and Doris Day movies.
Her backyard had all kinds of good fruits to eat right off the tree.
According to her, aloe could cure anything.
Her blackberry pie was my favorite summer food. Her dog Lucy was a weird combination of ugly and cute. Mama was always interested in new foods from new places.
My love of reading came from her.
She was always reading something, and always had a new book for me.
She worked in the library system for most of my childhood, and to me nothing smells better than a book from the library.
And while it’s incredibly silly, the part of her I’ll miss the most is her arms.
I loved the soft part under her bicep.
I would lean up against her and rub it.
I called it her flat tire, which now as a grown woman I know was rude, but I loved it.
It was her.
I have more than enough memories of my Mama, but I’ll never have enough of them to replace her.
She was 90 when she went peacefully in her sleep and she was ready to go, but I will never stop missing her.
I am grateful knowing that she has been reunited with her husband and sons. She was and always will be, my Mama.