Tribute

I feel really blessed to be living near Nana and Granddaddy. When I think back to my childhood, my memories of them always include a summer vacation. For many years, we lived so far away that we could only visit them once a year. That visit was filled with love and adventure. Their ‘country’ life was so different from my ‘suburban’ life. I loved that we could hike through a huge field to a dry creek bed and shoot BBs right in the back yard. I loved that I could walk up the big hill and get a soda and candy from the gas station and ‘put it on their tab’. I had never heard of having a tab at a store, let alone children going to a store by themselves. I also loved sitting in the back of Granddaddy’s pickup truck and driving to get ice cream at the Robinson Dairy Queen. We did that every time we visited. There were no Diary Queens where I lived. So I guess my childhood memories are centered around soda, candy, and ice cream. But really, it is so much more than that. It was about love, and generosity, and tradition. Nana and Granddaddy wanted us to be happy and wanted us to know they loved us.

As a young mother I have had the opportunity to raise my children within miles of Nana and Granddaddy. I cherish the fact that my children’s great-grandparents have attended their birthdays and special events for the past 7 years. I make sure to take a picture of the birthday-child with Nana and Granddaddy. Those are important pictures to me. It has been so fun for me to see how much Nana and Granddaddy love my children. They compliment them. They praise them. They brag about them. They take the time to talk with and listen to them. There is one thing my children know is required of them when it comes to Nana and Granddaddy—and that is a hug. We hug them when we first see them, and we hug them right before they leave. It is something we all do willingly. It is something we do as a symbol of our love, our concern, and our respect for them.

Now on this, Nana’s 80th birthday, I have pondered my thoughts and feelings for Nana and Granddaddy. See, for me, there is no Nana without Granddaddy. They are one. And this is the lesson and example I have taken from them. I want my husband to be there, right by my side, each step of my life. I want us to weather the rocky road of life and make it out, on my 80th birthday, standing together ready for whatever comes next. Nana, you’re a wonderfully strong woman. You love your family, and you have made us your life. You love your Heavenly Father, and you bear us that testimony every chance you get. Thank you for your tenderness, your insight, your experience. Thank you for sharing your life stories with us, so that we will know past generations. Thank you for enduring your chronic pain and continuing to work to serve your family. Thank you for loving Granddaddy and, with him, leading our family. We love you, because you first loved us.