So on Thanksgiving morning this year, (11-26-09) my Great Grandmother, Mary Miller, passed away.  She was 95 years old.

I love this picture because I think she looks so similar to my Mom in this one.

The funeral is this Thursday and unfortunately I cannot go.  I’m 33 weeks pregnant now and the long road trip would be unbearably uncomfortable.  But my mom sent me a copy of the nice things my Aunt and Uncle wrote about her for the funeral, including how my cousin gave her the nickname Old Old Grandma which we all then adopted.  They were really sweet and I wanted to write a few things about what I remember of her.

The sense of smell is a powerful thing.  We can capture a faint aroma and all our senses can feel as though we have been instantly transported to the past, back into a significant moment of our lives.  Idaho has this very distinct smell.  “That’s farm country” my mom always says.  It’s not a bad smell, the air actually seems newer somehow than the air in the city. I have always had a big imagination and at Great Grandma’s house my imagination was allowed to run free.  To this day the smell of farm country ignites this old spark deep within me, an excitement I think many of us rarely feel as adults.

When my cousins would come we would have so much fun there.  We would slide down the stairs in our sleeping bags until we got in trouble.  We would play in the irrigation canals and climb the peach trees.  We would feed apples that had fallen off the trees to the neighbors cows until they got sick.  We would go exploring and climb fences and have all sorts of adventures and in the evenings as the Sun was setting, we would have amazing food outside (we were all a bit messy with that watermelon) amid the sounds of Cicada songs and Cricket chirps.  Then we would all head inside for games and stories in the living room.

I also remember how alive I always felt around her.  She was a never ending fireball of energy.  I honestly don’t know where she got it all from.  Her house was always perfectly clean, her acres of land perfectly irrigated, her produce canned and her laundry done, even when my Great Grandpa was on bed rest and she was running a day care with 2-4 children from her home.

Mary Nipper before becoming Mary Miller

I remember the cellar full of  shelves and shelves of canned fruit and veggies that she had grown herself, learning what a “cellar” is anyways, how to can green beans and art and joy one can find in growing roses.  She loved her roses.

My favorite bed to sleep on in her house had this quilt I guess you could call it.  It was white with these little pearl sized cloth balls all over in that were scattered evenly but dissapeared in places in order to make a pattern of (I think it was) a rose.  I have looked all my life for something like it.  I loved it so much.  It wasn’t the comfiest thing in the world but I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere and it always made me happy to see it because I knew I was in for a great time and some seriously deep exhausted nights of sleep.  I loved waking up in the morning to the Sun coming in the window of that slanted roof farm house with the sound of cows, chickens and peacocks (Yep, peacocks).

I wish I had more time with her as an adult.  She was truly a magnificent woman.  She worked hard every day of her life, never complained and always gave with a smile.  I would have loved to hear her life story although I imagine that it was filled with hardship and she would be reluctant to appear like she was complaining.  We would write to each other every now and then after I got married and she always updated me on the status of her roses.

Grandma, you were always more beautiful to me than the roses you loved so much.  I will miss you.

Great Grandma Mary Miller