365 Days of Impacts

I never got to meet my paternal grandmother Ethel White. She passed away a few years before I was born. She was a classic beauty. My dad always told me what a lovely woman she was. She was as beautiful inside as she was out. When Harry left her, he left Dad and Uncle Bert to take care of her and they did until she passed away of an enlarged heart. I am sad that I never got to meet her, but she did an awesome job raising two fine men that raised GREAT families of their own. She was a great testament to perseverence in hard times. Though I never met her, the example she set made a big impression on me and how I handle myself when up against the odds.

Wilna Mae Poteete. I called her Nana. She was my maternal grandmother, born in 1909. She was so much to me - and I only knew her for 16 years. Many kids have special relationships with their grandparents and mine was with her. There is so much about her that I cannot even explain - she was that proverbial wise old owl that sometimes said nothing but said EVERYTHING at the same time. She was literally the only grandparent I knew, as the rest either passed away before I was born or were not in our lives. Nana was a Taurus like me, and I was as bull headed as she was. She lived in Athens, Alabama where we went to visit every June/July until she as gone. 'Willie', as my dad called her, loved to watch football with him and I know he misses, because none of us like to sit and watch sports like he does. But Nana did and they were like two peas in a pod. She could tell a 'box' cake from one made from scratch almost by sniffing it and heaven forbid eat the entire piece...