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| Senior captains: Will Fuller, Heath Bailey, Colby Wilson and myself |
Well at the beginning of my senior year, my Mamaw fell and hit her head on Sunday morning August 18th. After falling she had no symptoms or side effects from the fall, just a little bump. However, the next day while my parents were out of town dropping Andrea off at a college retreat I got a call while at school from her neighbor that she just wasn't acting right. I was checked out of school by my football coach and went to check on her. She was really confused and the paramedics thought that she had suffered a stroke (one side of her face was drooping). They took her to the hospital in Owensboro. After some tests, the medical team discovered that she had a subdural hematoma that was causing pressure on her brain. She was becoming more and more confused and then later became less responsive. Our options were to 1) drill a small hole in her skull and try to drain off the fluid or 2) do nothing. For any of you that knew Mamaw, you knew that she was an incredible fighter - she had beat cancer multiple times (skin, breast and colon cancer twice), a heart attack, suffered a few mini strokes, and 2nd degree burns to her hands and arms. So, there was really no choice, my aunt and father decided on option 1. The procedure was a success and after some time in the ICU, she went to a regular room. She was actually doing pretty well so they decided to move her to a nursing home until she was ready to go home. However, on September 16th the Lord decided that she was ready to come home to Him. This was a very difficult time, but it was much easier knowing that I will get to see her again someday in heaven and I can't wait to have some of her peanut brittle!
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| Family picture with Mamaw Probably Easter 1992 |
Back to the picture of the tape. The week that Mamaw fell was a difficult one for everyone in my family. Mamaw was the only grandparent that I had really gotten to know since my papaw (my mom's dad) passed away when I was just 5. I never got to know the other two because they passed away before I was born. We spent countless hours at the hospital that week, but our parents never kept us out of school because we needed some normalcy in our lives, and Mamaw had always fought back. I was going to school, then football practice and then heading over to the hospital at night to visit for a while. So, when Friday arrived it was our first game of the year. After much deliberation, my dad decided that he would take a break from the hospital and come to my game (Dad's cousin Janet stayed with Mamaw). In the locker room I decided that I would put a piece of tape on my sock with the letters GH, which were her initials, as a sign that even though I wasn't with her right then, she was definitely on my heart and mind. This just became a part of my uniform. Each week I would get dressed in my uniform and last thing on was a piece of tape, for GH. The week that she passed away was difficult, there were too many things going on and I missed some practice, but on Friday I still had my starting spot. That night before the game I put a piece of tape on every guy's leg in the locker room, even though most of the team never even met my Mamaw. It was a tribute to one of the most amazing women in my life. I will be forever grateful that I got to spend 17 years with her.
I am not quite sure how I would have made it through school if I had never known my Mamaw. This is because every time I was given the task of writing a story for English, I would somehow end up writing about her. Half of my 4th grade portfolio was about her. Here are some of my favorite stories.
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| Mamaw on her birthday with the grandkids |
Chicken Breath for the Soul (actual title of portfolio piece-this is the condensed version)
When my Uncle Bob was little, they sold pet chickens in the stores that had their feathers dyed different colors. Uncle Bob had one that he loved dearly. He would play with in the back yard and one day he had it inside an old car tire. Bob was bouncing around the tire and accidentally stepped on the chicken. Mamaw said she heard Bob screaming so she rushed out to see what was wrong. Bob was crying because he had killed his chicken. So Mamaw quickly picked up the chicken and said she started breathing in its mouth so that Bob would stop crying. After a few breaths Mamaw said that chicken just perked right up and started running around again. Sorry you didn't get to see her reenact it because that was sometimes the best part of the story.
Brush fire
This one I actually experienced first hand. I was always going to Mamaw's to do some kind of work out in the yard, whether it was mowing, raking leaves or just any kind of manual labor. One day, when I was around 10 or 11 years old, after gathering up all the sticks in the yard, we decided to burn the trash pile. So we lit the fire and within about 5 minutes the fire started getting out of control. The fire started spreading outward from the trash pile and started heading towards the embankment that was full of old leaves and limbs. I started trying to beat out the edges of the spreading fire with a broom, but the bristles all burned up. Then I got a rake and tried to rake back some of the leaves ahead of the fire. Meanwhile, Mamaw had gone up to the house and got a bucket and was filling it up with water (a water hose would have been nice). She came back and was at the top of the hill and was going to toss the water down onto the fire. However, the laws of physics were not on her side that day. Not only did the bucket of water roll down the hill, but so did Mamaw (in her 80s at the time). Mamaw did a complete somersault down the hill. I rushed over to help her up and she was fine, but she told me to go get the next bucket full. We finally put out the flames, but the memory will last forever.
Factory Worker
Mamaw held many jobs over the years: house wife, mother, tent maker, store owner and many more, but my two favorites are the candy factory worker and chicken plucker. She got a job at a chocolate candy factory and was part of the line that placed the chocolates in the boxes. I always envisioned the I Love Lucy episode. Her coworkers told her that every night before going home they took some of the chocolates home with them. Mamaw decided that she would do the same, so before the end of the night she gathered up some to take home. Just so happens that management got word that people were taking some home and decided to check every one at the door. There was a long line to get out that night and it was moving extremely slowly. All the women figured out what was going on and threw all their chocolates out on the floor, but for some reason Mamaw held on to hers. After a few minutes and apparently not much success at finding chocolates on the women, they let the rest of them go. Mamaw got away with the chocolates, while the halls were lined with all other women's discarded candy.
Another time she signed up to work as a chicken plucker. Here the job was simple, you got a chicken and started to pluck all the feathers. It was a job that was based on performance and you got paid at the end of the day based on the amount you plucked. After being shown the basic info, they let her begin on her first day. She started plucking out feathers and thought she was doing good until she saw how fast the other women were going. However, she kept going and figured that she would just get faster over time. One of her co-workers was explaining during lunch how getting paid worked and Mamaw found out that they docked your pay every time you broke the skin on the chicken. Mamaw was not told about this and wasn't even sure if she had done this or not, but figured that she probably done it to every one of her chicken's that day. So, instead of finishing the day she just left after lunch. Instead of collecting her payment for working she just left and considered it a win because she figured that she might have owed them money.
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| Mamaw and I before my Junior Prom 2002 |
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