Sweet Grandma

Today, I had to say goodbye to my wonderful sweet Grandma Doris. She was my dad's mom and we both had so many things in common. Our love for our children, our love for food, and we both shared quite a similar attitude (Who are you calling a fighter?) As a young child I feared her (maybe because I knew how strict she was after raising 3 rebellious boys herself), but as a teenager, I grew to love and respect and cherish this amazing woman. She worked as a chef for most of her child rearing days and blessed many, many people with her cooking. During Christmas time, she would send doctors, teachers, priests, homeless, and many others trays of over 40 different types of cookies such as bourbon balls, rum candy, biscotti, and much much more. But she also did amazing things, like bribe my way into Catholic school by making 500 pieces of fudge for the school fair for 10 years, or sending my whole troop of 150 soldier cookies...just because she wanted to bless me and the drill sgt said the only way she could send them to me is if she sent them for everyone. Sixty dollars later in postage and several hundred cookies, we all had a taste of Grandma's love. She always tried to show me she loved me, by making sure I was well fed. When I would visit her, she would send me home with bags and bags of food, like potato stew, stuffed bell peppers, stuffed crabs, and the list goes on and on. She loved animals and would help any animal or person that walked up to her door. She always used to tell me, no person, no matter who they are or where they come from, should ever be refused dinner at your table. She also taught me how to pray. I used to tease her and say she had direct connect to God and when I really needed or wanted something I would ask her to pray, because I knew she had a little more pull with God ( she had only been praying faithfully for the last 82 years). She taught me strength, after battling several types of cancers and several heart attacks and until the end, never complaining, only praying and praising God. I know she is in heaven now with her son (my dad) and looking after Chunky and I (and probably laughing at my parenting skills and my cooking)! A few months ago, I knew that she did not have much time left and was able to go to New Orleans to see her. I am so grateful for that trip. I was also able to complete a grandmother book which included over 100 pages of her life history and I am blessed to have lots of her famous recipes. The last thing she did was make sure that all of her arrangements were taken care of so that I would not have to worry about things. This was such a blessing to me and I encourage everyone to consider doing the same for your loved ones. I lost a wonderful woman in my life today, but I know that heaven has got to have a fabulous kitchen and they probably just got tired of waiting for some of her cooking!