Occasional Genius

My nana died a few minutes ago. It's kinda sad, because a part of my family history is gone with her. But mainly it's happy. She had a stroke a few weeks ago, and it has been a slow process since then. It was nice that everyone in the family got to tell her goodbye before she went.
Ila Brooks Farmer was 93 years old when she died. Born in 1916, she saw an awful lot in her lifetime. I remember when I was in 4th grade I had to interview someone much older. I chose her, and we sat down in her living room with a video camera for the interview. She told me about the first cars she saw around town, and the wooden toys they played with when she was a child.

A few months before Josh and I got married (May 2006) the family decided to move her into an assisted living home. She was perfectly healthy, but her mind was going, and someone had to be at her house every single minute of every single day. That then became me and Josh's first home together. Oh, how I had a love/hate relationship with that place! I loved the memories I had of staying at her house overnight and going to sleep while she watched the Atlanta Braves on TV. Of the Easter Sunday dinners where we always knew the typical places where the eggs were hid, especially in one particular PVC pipe in the yard, which we could never get the egg back out of, and it was left to rot inside the pipe. And then there's the time when all the adults took a nap and my brothers convinced me to climb up a ladder into the loft part of the garage. I was too scared to climb back down, and was stuck in the heat for at least an hour.

There was always the "extra" room, which contained all the paper and crayons so we could create art projects on Sunday afternoons. The door was always closed to the room, and it was generally freezing in there, even in the summer with no air conditioning. When Josh and I moved in, it remained a storage room and we always kept the door closed.

But my favorite part of the house was the creek in the back yard. It was soooooo awesome! As a kid, I would "go fishing" in it with a stick and twine tied to the end of it. No hook, just the twine. I wonder why I never caught anything... But when we moved in the spring of 2006, the creek became a place to focus my pictures on, and relax listening to the sound of it.

All of these memories are my Nana. She was an amazing woman, and I'm glad she's up in heaven now. Her husband has been there for over 30 years now. I know you're not "married" in heaven, but at least she's not here without him anymore. She's happy and healthy, and seeing God's face.