One Hundred Twenty Pounds.....

September 19, 2004 my grandmother passed away.  We called her Mam-mam.  At 89 she had two children, five grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren.

When my brothers and I were little we would run up the hill through the corn field to her house.  All five grandchildren would sleep over, laying in a row on the floor.  She would make us root beer floats, sock monkeys, clothes, afghans, apricot jam and Hungarian goulash!  She would bring us shells and presents from the beach and sometimes even take us with her....all five of us!!!  Or sometimes just the boys and sometimes just the girls.

And when the great grand children arrived, she'd do it all again for them....well, except not the making of clothes and one day (much to our dismay) she got tired of apricots so she cut down the tree!  It was a BIG tree!!!

She was a feisty woman!  Always carried her own doggie bag, especially to buffets, and was known as the Queen of Returns as she would use things for months, decide she didn't care for them and insist that the stores give her all of her money back!!!  They always did!  She was also quite the gambler heading to Alantic City, saved quarters in hand, and always come back a winner!!!  She had natural luck.  You'd walk outside with her and she would almost always find a four-leaf clover.  She would wrap them in cellophane and press them in her Bible.  Her Bible is full of them!

By the time she passed, my boys were in high school and college.  They were very close to her.  I find it very befitting that she passed on International Talk Like a Pirate day, so that every year when we say, "Ahoy thar Matie" we can be reminded of her feisty personality.

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 A few years before she passed we were forced to take her car keys away from her.  When we took her to the eye doctor she could no longer see the big E.  Yes, the BIG E at the very top of the chart!!!

She didn't take to the new life style having to be driven around very easily.  She only finally relented when one of my boys needed a car.  We bought hers.

Since she was no longer driving this meant that my mom had to take her to all of her doctor appointments.   Near the end she appeared to be losing weight.  The doctor agreed.  However, Mam-mam did not!!  She would argue with the doctor incessantly.  She would tell him over and over again how she weighed herself every morning and her scale said, "120 lbs."  Each time the doctor would weigh her....each time they argued.  She KNEW she weighed 120 lbs!

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After she crossed over, cleaning out her house was an emotional task.  At times tears welled in our eyes.  It was so hard to pack up lifetimes of memories.  At other moments we were perplexed as to why she would stock up on sooooo many boxes of garbage bags, plastic bags, tin foil and cling wrap.  I was awarded her stash.....over eight years later and I still haven't used them all!!!  I'm on my last box of sandwich bags.  You know, the old kind....not ziplock bags....the kind that you have to tuck in and fold over!!

And then there was that moment.  That moment of shear blissful utterly clear understanding that left us with tears rolling down our cheeks and laughing so hard we could barely stop!!

We were cleaning out her bedroom when I happened upon her scale.  Unbeknownst to us, Mam-mam had bought a new scale, the digital kind.   I asked my mother how much she always said she weighed.  My mother replied, "120 lbs."  To which I responded, "Well, she did."

It worked perfectly.  Only, she hadn't removed the clear film from the display window!  Guess what it read?  One Hundred and Twenty Pounds!!