Grandparents: the father or mother of a person’s father or mother. Like everyone else I had four, but saw only one more than once in my childhood, that one was my maternal grandfather who lived In Houston near where I grew up. My maternal grandmother and my paternal grandparents lived in Virginia.

My paternal grandfather, Aubrey Allen, died when I was 10.  The last time I was with him I was six months old just before my mother moved back to Texas. My auntie tells me he was a kind and loving man who struggled later in life with debilitating illnesses. My paternal grandmother,  Alease,  told me many times that the day we left Virginia he held me and cried saying, “They are taking my baby away and I am never going to see her again.”

I left Virginia as an infant, I did not return until I was 27. My Grandmother Alease, as well as my Aunt Thelma, stayed in touch with my mother throughout my childhood but my first memory of her was in 1968 when my brother graduated from high school and she came for a visit. She was 60 years old, eight years younger than I am now… funny how she seemed older.

After that visit, I saw her once five years later when I lived in Florida and she came for a visit. We corresponded frequently but it was another 9 years in 1982, when she was 74, before we saw each other again. That year I visited Virginia for the first time since 1956 when my mother took me to Texas.  

That visit became the beginning of building a relationship and making up for lost time. I visited often after that, every couple of years. She loved me unconditionally and loved to tell me about the past. Even after all the years since leaving Virginia, she would tell me every visit with teary eyes, about Aubrey’s emotional goodbye.

In all the years I visited her, we would spend hours looking at photographs, talking about the past, sitting next to each other and just holding hands. She had some of the most amusing colloquialisms many of which I wrote down, so as never to forget. Saying like, “She ain’t got enough sense to pour piss out of a boot.” or “You can’t run the roads and keep house.”

She was resourceful and made good use of her time. Well into her 90’s she crocheted lap blankets for the “old folks” in the nursing home. She also crocheted dish cloths from cotton string yard. I still have several unused ones in my kitchen drawer. Saving them because —- I don’t want to forget.

My Grandma Alease passed away in 2006, at the age of 98. God gave us many years to catch up. Often, when I spoke to her phone in the 25 years before she passed, she would end the conversation by saying, “I just pray to God I can see you one more time before I die.” It became almost comical because I would go for a visit, and I wouldn’t be home more than a week, and when I spoke to her, she would say it again!

I went to Virginia the week before she died, and I spent time with her while she was in the hospital. The day I left, they moved her back to the nursing home under hospice care. Sometimes she was in and out of reality but when I lean down to kiss her goodbye she looked at me and said, “Hope I see you one more time.”

She passed into glory on April 12, 2006 on the first night of Passover the Wednesday before Easter. I flew back to Virginia to say my last goodbye. I know it is not the end because I will see her one more time, one time that will last for eternity.