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| Elise, Nanny Moe, Elaina |
Today I am thankful for Steve's grandmother, Nanny Moe. She died yesterday at the age of 92.
The Husband and I were married for six years before the Shorties came along. Some of his people live in Mississippi, and when I heard that he hadn't visited them in more than a decade, I put my Wife Foot down. (We are GOING to know our relatives, thank you.) So, we loaded up and went for the first of a zillion visits. It's now a twice-a-year destination.
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| Carter and Nanny |
In the beginning, we stayed in Steve's grandmother's spare bedroom on our visits. We called her Nanny Moe. A different side of the family called her Big Momma. Sometimes it was Granny or Nanny. Her husband called her Genevia.
She looked forward to our visits as much as we did. There were homemade breakfasts for twenty people in the mornings, visiting late into the evening, sitting on the swing with coffee. I cherished the time we get to spend with her hearing about her life, her adventures, her Christian walk, her family. I'm so thankful that I got to know Steve's grandmother in a very personal way.
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| Elise, Elaina, Nanny |
After the twins came, we kept going, loading everyone up and driving to Pearl/Jackson to let her visit her great-grandbabies. And when Carter and Lilly came, the same. Her mind had begun to slip a little after the Little Flower was born. Sometimes she thought that Carter was Steve. Sometimes she thought I was her granddaughter. But she always recognized that we belonged to her in some form or fashion.
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| Steve, Lilly, Nanny |
I also became close to Steve's cousin Sandra through this process. (Everyone thinks that she and I are the cousins.) While we were making our twice-a-year sojourns to Mississippi, we became not just relatives, but close friends with Sandra and James. Somewhere in there before Shorties, Sandra was diagnosed with cancer for the second time. I had a real, tangible burden about praying for her healing. It kept me up at nights. It was the first time in my spiritual walk that I had a serious prayer calling for someone as a prayer warrior. I'd heard that phrase before, but had never been called to do it myself.
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| Sandra and Me at the fair a few years ago. :-) |
This was before instant email access, so I wrote snail mail cards and letters of encouragement to her three or four times a week. I love her and James and their kids like they are my own family. Sometimes I think we are guilty of compartmentalizing our families in marriage.
Your family and
My family. When it should be
Our Family.
Ruth 1:16 But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay.
Your people will be my people and your God my God."
What a blessing it is to know that I had the privilege of knowing her on Earth and that I will be seeing her again in Heaven! And that through her life, I got to have the real experience of Steve's people becoming my people. Now, that is a life well lived.
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