Martha Lou

I never thought it would be this way. I never thought the grief would be this all consuming. I've faced close, personal grief before, but never like this.
 Come to think of it, I never thought I'd lose her, either. Not really. You don't just lose the strongest, most determined woman the red dirt of Alabama has, and will ever see. You don't just have her laughing on the phone one day, and then, then have family talking in hushed tones around the hospital bed the next. But, truth is, you do.
 I've tried and tried to write since my grandmother died. And, I managed a few pieces, but I always pulled them. They were too raw, too real. And, that was before the actual grieving set in. And, how it has set in.
Grief just hasn't set in.  It's consuming me in small increments. It's stolen my focus of the here and now, and mocked me in my dreams by bringing her back to me. Only to wake me to a world without her morning after morning. It moved in so slowly I didn't see it setting up camp in every corner of my soul. But, here it is in all its pain.
 It's ugly. It hurts. It twists my heart in one hand, and soul in the other when I pick up the phone to call her only to remember I can't.
 And, then it comforts. It reminds me that God was blessing us even before our own mother walked out on us. He blessed us with being just across the road from Grandmom. One phone call, and two and a half minutes away to the woman who was more my mama than my real one.
 I spent more time in her house than I probably did my own. I grew up stealing cookies from her cookie jar while she was sewing all our clothes in the next room. My sister and I played school in the toy room. We rambled the fields careful not to ramble too far, for she seldom spanked, but heaven help us when she did.
 My brother plowed countless acres of carefully laid out rows with his farm tractors up and down the green carpet of her living room. And, I will never forget what I will call a surprised face, once when he stuck a key into an electrical outlet.
 Once, a baby squirrel fell from its nest out of one of her massive white oaks or towering hickory trees. Grandmom took a dish towel and saved him from the front flower bed to let us try to make a pet of him.
 Bushytail lived the good life with his condo made of milk crates, and lavish meals of apples, peanut butter, and hand shelled nuts. I have no idea why that critter insisted on continually trying to escape.
  She had PaPa put a swimming pool in much against his own feelings. Too many stories to tell of the joys of summer hours spent playing chicken on the giant tractor tire they brought from the farm. Forts built out of folding lawn chairs draped with beach towels were the prime headquarters for clubs of giggly girls every Wednesday.
 Our standing pool party had some of the finest girlfriends a girl could ever wish for. Lindsay, Emily, Wendy, my sister, Jess, and I swimming laps of Aligator Go, diving into the depths for safety from horseflies, and never getting out of the pool when told.
 Aggravation was my cousin Larry trying to get his daughter Emily out of the pool without diving in after, and dragging her to the truck. I still laugh when I think of all the times he'd have her almost to the truck and she'd turn to run and jump right back in the pool.
 Someone once asked me if there was anything I thought I couldn't do. After thinking on it, I had to laugh. No, I went on to say. I suppose I never had. After being raised by Martha Lou, and seeing her do everything from the most intricate crochet work, to killing a six foot long chicken snake with nothing but a garden hoe, an incensed bull dog, and three terrified, screaming children, I never thought otherwise. Always making meals to take to the sick, blankets for new babes at church, and the sole reason Hallmark is still in business, as she never forgot a birthday, anniversary, or sympathy card. I'm willing to bet she could have bought a car with the amount of money she must have paid in postage fees.
 She left that bar high.  A bar so high, I know I'll never rise to meet it. But, I've got the rest of my life to try, however long that might be.
 You'd think all these memories would plug the holes, and stop the tears from spilling. But, it just doesn't work that way. She's gone. And, I feel like I'm the one dying on the inside. I know all the cliches will hold true. I know it'll get easier with time. I know this won't last. I know, I know, I know. But, knowing just isn't going to magically get me over and through this.
 Martha Lou Hargrave was the finest lady to ever walk out of the cotton fields of Greenbriar and Belle Mina. The kindest, gentlest, hardest working, most determined woman I have ever known. And, I'll never be the same for it again. Thank God. She is entrenched so deeply in my bones, my spirit, I will never truly be without her. Thank God.
 But, what I wouldn't give for just one more hug from the woman who raised me.