My Sweet Denny

My grandmother, my Denny, passed away at the beginning of August. It was not a shock–we spent the few weeks prior waiting, stuck in that terrible limbo until she finally, thankfully fell asleep–but it was still so hard. Losing both of my grandparents in less than a year and watching my mother, aunts, and uncle lose both of their parents was so hard. It's been a tough couple of years for us.

She was so loved (and so loving), and I wanted to share here the short piece I wrote for her service a few weeks ago.

My last day with Denny was at the end of June. I had been visiting for the weekend and stopped by one last time before heading out of town–but when I walked into her room at Wedgewood (the assisted living facility she spent her last few months in), she wasn't there. I was in the middle of asking the caretakers where exactly my grandmother had gotten to when I heard the faint shuffling of a walker and turned to see Denny's head poking around the corner.

When she saw me, she let out a quiet "oh!" and mumbled something I thought I understood.

"You thought I'd already left?" I asked. She nodded. "Denny, I wouldn't leave without coming to see you! I told you I'd be back today!"

"Oh, I'm so glad," she said, hugging my neck tightly. "I'm so glad."

After Denny's stroke, she had trouble speaking and it was often difficult to understand what she was saying, but there were some things that came out very clearly–like, "I was so mad!" or "I know that!" or "I wish you could stay."

After I found her on that last day, I took her for frozen yogurt. She waited in the car while I was inside trying to determine the perfect Denny-sized amount and knowing that whatever I got would probably be too much. Sure enough–when I handed it to her she said, very clearly, "Oh, this is way too much."

Then she ate all of it.

Denny always made sure that you were okay, that you were never wanting for anything, which is why you could never leave her house empty-handed. You're trying to walk out the door and she's shoving things into your arms–12-packs of soda, boxes of spaghetti mix, rolls of toilet paper, bags of powdered sugar, half a loaf of pound cake. (Of course, you always had to double-check the expiration dates since Denny was a firm believer of "if it's not open, it's still good." Remind me to tell you about the three-year-old grape juice Denny had fermenting in her fridge.)

One Mother's Day, I went over to her house to give her a rose and ended up leaving with five roses she'd cut from her own rosebush. Even on that last day, she handed me a box of animal crackers and a little cup of peanut butter for a snack on my drive back to Austin. She just couldn't help herself. She had so much love to give–and I'm so thankful I was one of the lucky ones that got to be on the receiving end.

I find comfort in the thought that my Denny and D-Dad are together again, that they were only "separated for a season" as the pastor put it. They were married for nearly 63 years and were the cutest. They constantly picked on each other–you know, the way you do when you've been in love with someone for over six decades. They played cards together every single day and Denny would tease D-Dad every time she won (which, despite what either of them might have said, was roughly half the time). Any time Denny got home from being out somewhere (usually TJ Maxx), D-Dad, feigning annoyance, would say, "What took you so long?!"

"Don't you know that's the first thing Art said when she got to Heaven?" Denny's sister Janita (known to us as "Jeter") said before the service. "What took you so long?"

-Maggie