Good-bye, Meme (1924-2015)

Today is Meme's funeral.  In Arkansas.  And I am here, in Abu Dhabi.  Almost 8000 miles away.  I am very sad to not be with the extended Scroggin clan as they gather to celebrate Meme's life, her influence on us all and to stay good-bye.  She was a remarkable woman and I learned so much from her.

I planned to go to her funeral and even bought a plane ticket.  In a strange and unfortunate coincidence, Jake's grandmother (Grandma Mom) died the day after Meme and their funerals are on the same day.  Yes, the same day.  Given that we didn't feel comfortable leaving the girls so far away  with friends (who generously offered to keep them!), we decided to send Jake back.  We did a last minute switch-a-roo (thank you Expedia for a generous refund policy on tickets bought at the last minute!).  Jake's mom died 15 years ago and his grandmother is an important link to his mom who he still misses so much.  Grandma Mom is also the only grandmother Jake has really had a as his other grandmother died when he was young.  So even though we both wanted to be there, we had to make a difficult decision and pick one of us. I am thankful that my family understood that trade-off and was supportive.

The good news is that I'll see most of my cousins and extended family this summer when I visit and we'll be able to reminisce about Meme then.  But given that today is Meme's funeral, I've been doing some reminiscing of my own.  So here goes a random walk down some of the many memories I have with Meme.

Summer 2014: The last time I saw Meme.  It is a special memory because she knew who I was when I walked in the door.  She hadn't recognized me in a couple of years without prompting.  Meredith and Jake were able to go with me. Unfortunately Regan, Jane and Anna had pneumonia when we were in Arkansas last summer so they were unable to see Meme.

Meme was a very involved grandparent.  We spent a LOT of time when Meme and Gran after school, on weekends, on vacations and probably the most memorable, at the Cove Creek lake cabin at Greers Ferry Lake.  Hanging on the wall in the kitchen was a decorative plate with the phrase, "The only sad sole allowed in this kitchen is on a plate."  I still think of Meme whenever I see sole at the fish market or on a menu.

The cabin was a two-bedroom, one bath simple A-frame and somehow we would fit Meme, Gran and two or three carloads of family in there.  I really don't know how we all fit.  There was a set of twin beds in one room with a trundle bed under one of the beds.  The trundle could be raised to the same height as the other beds to make one giant room of a bed.  We could fit 5 or 6 grandkids in there that way.  We played with a Red Riding Hood doll that you could turn upside and inside out and turn into the Big Bad Wolf.  Hours of fun in that bed-sized room and that one doll.

When we first started going to the cabin, the running water wasn't drinkable and there was no phone.  So we had to walk to the well and bring back water for brushing our teeth, drinking and cooking with.  When the phone was finally installed, it was hidden behind the door in the master bedroom.  Something about thieves.  I don't remember why!  Oh, and there was an "Out of Order" sign on the toaster oven - Meme thought that the "theives" wouldn't steal it if they thought it was broken.

There was a Doctor Pepper clock on the wall in the living room (I'm sure it was free from somewhere) and it had "Dr. Pepper time" at 11, 2 and 4, I think.  The kids learned a lot about being independent during our Cove Creek stays - we fetched water from the well, played pretty competitive horseshoes, wandered in the woods, swinging from vines and catching crawdaddies.  We (gasp) hitchhiked to the corner store once and immediately regretted it once we were in the back of the truck (convinced we were being kidnapped!).  We ate a lot of beef jerky on the boat, nursed many a sun burn and managed not to lose John and Kimberly when all the boat people got distracted and didn't notice them drop the ski rope - tired from a long day of water skiing.

We also learned a bit about how to be frugal (and direct) from Meme.  I loved talking to her long distance.  She would say what she needed to say and then blurt out, "OKBye" and hang up.  I'm not sure she ever adjusted to the unlimited long distance calls of today.  She was a woman who really rose to the occasion as necessity demanded and discovered a natural business talent.  When she realized that Gran's up and down entrepreneurial endeavors may or may not provide enough income to send their kids to college, she rolled up her sleeve and started a very successful fabric store that people came to from all over the region.  She made enough to help her kids get through college, sold it and it was still a vibrant business during my childhood.  I'm sure she also helped Gran quite a bit with the real estate business.  When I discovered in graduate school that school loans offered a decent interest rate but a lot of fees that made school a lot more expensive than I thought, Meme offered to loan me the money at the same interest rate (but no fees!).  I still have the spreadsheet of my loan repayments and, boy, was I glad to pay off *that* loan.

I planned to walk through a lot of my favorite memories here but it's kind of making me sad that I'm not with my brothers, parents, uncles, aunts and cousins to remember them together.  So I think I'll close this up with these prompts of things that are coming to mind today to make sure we talk about these this summer when I'm able to be with family.  I'm sure I'm forgetting some of the most important - so family make sure you bring your memories back this summer, too.

• Kimberly - the peanut butter pie under the dining table!  For a week.  Oops.
• Lawrence Welk.   And John - do you remember listening to the 8-track tape of Annie so much I literally wore it out in their car?  And the Andrews Sisters?
• Vegetable pie!  Monster cookies!  Chicken spaghetti!
• Shanghai card game (does anyone remember how to play)?
• Meme's journals and all the small moments she captured of our small lives
• That giant but low baby chair for feeding (*what* would you even call that thing - a "low" high chair?)
• Poor Meme torn between loyalty to Gran and the grandkids' efforts to get Gran to stop smoking
• Poor Meme torn between loyalty to Gran and the grandkids' lives when he let us drive the golf cart to the golf course (I just looked it up - 2.8 miles on real roads!  We were probably 9, 10 & 11 or so?)
• Leaving for our Florida vacation at 4:00 a.m. so that we would arrive at check in time
• The screened in porch where it all happened on Winthrop Dr.
• The "pawty" barge and the picnics Meme would fix for us
• Sledding down their hill (and making the newspaper!)
• Building the ramp at the bottom of their steep hill and not killing ourselves on the scooters
• Keeping Tim when he was ready for "plain days and plain nights"
• Ok, the standalone garage was a bit overflowing but how orderly Meme's house was - remember the big closet between the foyer and the family room?  It pretty much just held the two sets of card tables and chairs and a vacuum cleaner.  I wish I had inherited a bit of Meme's more minimalist tendencies... 
• The many books, shows and plays we wrote at Meme's house and performed with whatever costumes we could come up with there.
• Mom do you remember when you, Grandma, Meme and Aunt Mary Ann visited me in Chicago?  After getting lost and then miraculously going around a massive traffic jam, you were very late for your flight.  I pulled up to the airport and Meme just took off (and left a shoe in my car!).  She was going to make that flight home to be with Gran even if she had to leave the rest of you behind!
• Driving up to see Uncle Doc, Aunt Bettye and the glamorous cousins of Richard, Robin and Rex and hearing about Meme and Aunt Bettye's childhood in Piggott, AR
• Hearing Meme's "back in my day" stories (I wish I knew more of them).  I do remember that when she went to college she couldn't afford the text books so she shared them with someone and if it wasn't her turn to have them, then she didn't get to use them to study the night before the test. That took discipline and planning and there was no room for procrastination.
• Just generally the many memories of being on Winthrop DRIVE (before the post office changed the name of the street!) with a great set of extended family.

Thanks, Meme, for being a wonderful, involved, strong, loving, influential person in my life.