A Little More Serious

Last December, I had the incredible honor of speaking at my Great-Grandmother's funeral. Ina Rea Moore was truly one of the most amazing women I have ever known, and to share her name and be in her family line is blessing and responsibility for which there are few words. She lived to be 97 years old, and the people whose lives she touched are still being counted. I think everyone knows that Great-Grandmothers do not live forever, but losing her was still difficult. She was relatively healthy right up to the final four months of her life -- even had a driver's license until the last year (that's an issue for another blog about the DMV!). Anyway. :-) I just wanted to tell you what an amazing woman she was, what a rich heritage she passed on, and how much I still miss our regular phone chats.
This week, my family was dealt another painful blow. My grandfather, "Pappy" has what appears to be terminal cancer. The doctors feel it is too far spread for any effective treatment. He is home now, resting, and the plan is to make him as comfortable as possible and allow him to be in familiar surroundings with his family for as long as he has left on this earth. From time to time I will attempt to use this space to offer a bio of who he is, to provide you with a few snapshots of the role this man plays in my heritage. Today, I am thinking about memories of him from my childhood. We used to go to the grocery store together in Corpus Christi, and no matter what else we put in the buggy, there were two things you could count on. Dr. Pepper and Fritos! He'd let me ride on the bottom of the buggy and push me through the store, even when I was way too old for such things. :-) Pappy grew up on a farm in Dilley, Texas. His mother died when he was 12, but he has always told me I have her brown eyes. Most of his friends called knew him as "Dilley." (Heck, if my name was Horace Hale, I might go by Dilley, too!) So, as a child, one of my favorite games was to holler through their old frame house, "Silly Dilley!" and then, I'd wait for him to come running. It never took long. I would scream and squeal and hide behind anything I could find. He'd get down on all fours and hunt me out, then tickle me until I promised I was truly very sorry and would never say it again (until I could get far enough away to run and hide some more, that is!).
Please keep my family in your prayers over the coming months. Mimi lost her mother in December, and now is losing her husband. My mom lost her grandmother, and now prepares to say goodbye to her dad. We all need a extra measure of grace in these days.