Archives for May 2011

Tonight during prayer time Alex started by saying, “Dear Lord, thank you for Sissie’s great life.”

And you know, that just about sums up the last few days. There was some sadness, of course, but more than anything else, there has been so much thankfulness – so much gratitude – for Sissie’s great life.

In keeping with Sissie’s no-nonsense approach to, well, everything, Martha planned a very simple, very sweet funeral. There was visitation for an hour Friday morning, and afterwards there was a graveside service at a nearby cemetery. The visitation – which was at the church where D and I grew up and also got married – was like a trip down memory lane. We saw so many people we’ve known all our lives, and between my uncle’s funeral last October and Sissie’s funeral this past Friday, I have felt such a renewed appreciation for our home church and our hometown. They take care of their people, you know?

After the graveside service Martha turned to my sister-in-law Rose and me and said, “Have you ever seen anything more perfectly beautiful? Was that not perfectly beautiful? It was just perfectly beautiful!” And it really was. It was a wonderful tribute to 101 well-lived years.

We decided to spend the rest of the weekend in Mississippi, and it turned out to be such a fun time with our extended family. We made some good memories – and Sissie would love that.

Thanks for caring, y’all!

As a general rule I do pretty okay-ish with stress and deadlines and etc. I can kind of compartmentalize each thing as it comes, not looking too far in the future at whatever the next thing might be, and being able to do that helps to keep me (fairly) even-keeled and, for the most part, not too worry-ish about what’s waiting in the wings.

But somewhere around last Thursday, the various and sundry stresses and concerns and whathaveyous of the last three weeks caught up with me. And emotionally, at least, I hit the wall. Slammed right into it. And I stayed right up against that wall until Friday night around 9 o’clock in the PM when I finished talking to my husband and Explaining My Feelings in great detail.

He was mighty sweet to listen.

I think the bottom line is that when you take the day-to-day pressures of commitments and obligations and work and family and whatnot, then mix up that stuff with what has been a profoundly sad time in this part of the country and top it all off when some SWEET MERCY THEY’VE GONE COMPLETELY CUCKOO hormones – well, the emotional junk is bound to rise to the surface.

But the good news is that based on how emotional I was last week, I should be EVEN AND STEADY until approximately 2014. NARY A RIPPLE in the emotional sea. SMOOTH SAILING AHEAD.

ANYWAY – I reckon I just had some stuff that I needed to process and think through and talk about with my people. And with that being said, I will now bore you to tears by catching you up on all the excitement that’s been going on around here.

First of all, we ate supper at Zaxby’s Friday night. D and I each ordered a chicken finger platter. Alex ate a Nibbler and some fries. I got a Diet Coke refill before we left.

I understand if you need a moment to take in all of these exciting developments. It’s hard to wrap your brain around this level of sophistication and excitement, I’m sure.

And really, I can’t help but think that my 24 year-old self would be horrified by the developments in my 41 year-old life. Because, I mean, my 24 year-old self had high hopes that I would enjoy going to Fancy Gatherings and that I would care about wine and that I would only patronize the finest restaurants.

But clearly the 24 year-old me way underestimated my disdain for small talk, my complete ineptitude where wine is concerned, and last but not least my unconditional love for fried chicken in all its forms.

And really, I can’t fault her, because my 24 year-old self had no way of knowing that Zaxby’s chicken tenders, THEY ARE SO TASTY.

So pretty much Friday night boiled down to Zaxby’s + a long talk with my husband + A LOT of sleeping.

Saturday morning we drove over to Mississippi to see our mamas and D’s grandmother. And let me tell you what: I was as happy as I could be about having some uninterrupted time with my fellas. It’s been a few months since the three of us went on a little road trip together, and I loved it. We had lunch with Mama, Daddy and Martha, then spent some time at the nursing home with Sissie.

(And yes, I’m leaving out a big huge hunk of very funny details. But those very funny details deserve a post or essay or short novella of their own. I might even write a poem if I were any good at, you know, rhyming.)

Sissie recently celebrated her 101st birthday, by the way. She wasn’t able to leave the nursing home like she did last year, but we were so grateful to be able to spend some time with her yesterday and feel beyond fortunate that Alex has been able to know his great-grandmother. She is something else.

(Listen – y’all are as sweet as you can be to hang with this post as long as you have. It’s certainly not anything that could be considered even remotely interesting. But I’m just trying to get back on the bloggy horse, so to speak.)

(And look at me making a horse reference on the weekend of the Kentucky Derby!)

(Maybe I should go put on a sassy hat.)

(And speaking of hats – did we ever discuss the hat that Princess Beatrice wore to the Royal Wedding? Because I just. Well. I don’t know. I have never. Mercy. Never seen anything. Um. Can’t remember seeing. My goodness. Have to say it was a first. That hat. Would make a lovely design for a mirror. Or perhaps some decorative moulding.)

Okay. I’ve totally lost my way. But at least all this rambling sort of resembles a post. And I really did have a great weekend. And thanks to an episode of Curb Appeal that Sister saw, I’ve decided to paint my front door. And I bought some new Bermuda shorts. And Alex drew a portrait of me for Mother’s Day.

My first reaction when I saw it was to cry – because I’d had a rough week and it was just the sweetest thing for the little man to give me such a thoughtful gift. After I recovered from the tears and studied A’s handiwork a little bit more, all I could think of was what Shelby says about M’Lynn’s hair in Steel Magnolias: “You can’t mess up her hair…you just tease it and make it look like a football helmet.”

If the portrait is any indication, I have learned that lesson well.

Just tickles me to pieces, it does.