Happiest of Birthdays...

Today is a day that I dread every year...it was my beloved grandmother's birthday.  While I think of her every single day, this is the day that I miss her the most.  So much of who I am is owed to her.  I have so many memories from the 23 years we spent together.
I grew up on a farm in rural Oklahoma, and while I was surrounded daily with the "country life", she was my big city adventure.  She and my grandfather lived in Tulsa...they had NEIGHBORS!! She worked at a gourmet kitchen store, drank wine out of stemmed glasses, cooked beautiful meals, wore high heels and fancy jewelry and she loved to laugh!! She was my Mimi.
I will never forget the Christmas that Mimi and Pa bought us REAL FUR COATS!! (and not from anything that we fed on the farm!), Oh My...I thought I was BIG STUFF!! "Only the best for her babies", she would say! Gifts were always so exciting coming from Mimi...pretty silver plated hand mirrors, fancy engraved compacts, jeweled writing pens, and beaded purses!! Every girly girls dream!
She took us to OVER THE TOP restaurants, elaborate weddings, and introduced us to things we would never have experienced otherwise. But most of all what I remember was the TIME she spent with us.  The time to teach me how to act like a lady, how to set the table, fold the napkins, walk in heels and stand with good posture.  She was a role model like no other.
As a mother at an early age myself I relied on her until I figured everything out.  For 2 weeks after Jarrett was born she stayed with us to help me out, I remember crying the day she went back home...but she taught me what I needed to know!  2 more babies followed for her to bless with her sweet lullabies.  I can still hear her cradling my precious little ones and singing "I love you, a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck"...
When she went into the hospital for heart surgery, we were all scared...I went to see her just before they took her back and she was crying and I remember saying "don't worry, it's going to be ok"...and she said "I hope so, because I need to watch my babies grow up".  I went home with the kids to wait to hear when the operation was complete, but as the day went on, and the complications grew, I went back to the hospital to be with everyone else...and I was there when the surgeon came out to say that she was gone.  By far the worst moment in my life to that point.  The first thing that I said was "what am I going to tell my babies?" How would I exist in a world without her?  She was my rock.
Nearly 13 years later, not a day goes by that I don't think of her...and most days I reference her in some way.  She will always be with me...when I set the fancy table, and fold the cloth napkins, when I use the sparkly rhinestone ink pens and when I correct you on your posture...it is in thanks to her.
Maybe I should rephrase the comment "today is a day I dread..." I don't dread the day, I can't think of a better memory of February 26 than Suzanne Watson, what I dread is how much I know that I will miss her this very day every year.
Everything happens for a reason, of this I am sure...but I do believe that she is watching my babies grow up, and as funny as it sounds...every now and then I get a tingle in my back that feels like someone is putting their hand on me, and I think of her.
Happiest of Birthday's Mimi...