365 Days of Impacts

How do I sum up Aunt Mary? Aunt Mary or “Mamie” as we all called her was my grandmother Wilna’s older sister. When Nana passed away, Aunt Mamie became our surrogate grandmother - she welcomed our family with open arms when we would come down to visit. She never had kids. But we were ALL her children. She was a cantankerous woman in her old age who was no nonsense. She was matter of fact, direct and did not beat around the bush. She was the oldest of all the siblings of my grandmother's generation. Aunt Mary LOVED her garden. I swear when I’m out in the yard, Aunt Mary is out there with me guiding me (along with MOM). She was a golfer - and I remember her going out golfing with us in her 80s - which blew my mind. She was always up for a challenge!   Aunt Mary left us all a little piece of her things when she passed on. I have a pair of king and queen chairs with a marble table. She allowed us to tell her what in her house we would like after she was gone. When Christ...

Aunt Bec -or ‘Rebecca” was sister to Aunt Mary, and also my grandmother Wilna. She was probably the most prim and proper of the three. Her husband was the Mayor of Athens, Alabama at one point. She was the eldest woman of the Alabama family that kept everyone in check. She was a southern baptist to the core and was very rooted in the church, and not just because her son was a baptist preacher. She was by nature very sweet. She lived a few blocks down from Nana on South Houston Street and a couple blocks up from Aunt Mary. I still have irises in my yard that have traveled from Oakhurst to Tucker to Oakridge with me. These Irises were on her street, and I will pass as many of them on to my bonus kids as possible. This house was the house all the siblings grew up in. It had been in the family a long time. Now George Allen and Patsy live in it. They will likely pass it on to their kids. Aunt Bec and I were polar opposites as far as our personalities, what we stood for and who ...

The first major death in my life was my maternal Grandmother, Wilna Poteete. This was the first time I dealt with the emotion of grief. Nana literally was my world when I was a little girl. Our lives revolved around her coming to visit or us going to visit her. When she fell ill, I was a Junior in High School. The reason I remember this is that she was able to come to Christy's high school graduation, but she was not alive for mine. This was devastating to me. When Nana got sick, Mom had to leave us with Dad and go to Alabama to take care of her for a few months. She had heart disease and had had a heart attack. While Mom was gone, Christy was in her first year of College at Wayne State University in Detroit, so she was gone all day. Dad worked from 5am to 6pm down at Highland Park for Chrysler. Needless to say, I had a lot of time on my hands to think. Sure I had a lot of after school activities, but I was by myself a lot. One of my "chores" was to cook dinne...

One of the fondest memories I have of Nana was when most of my cousins were teens, and I was just a tween, they would go to new years parties in Athens when we were there for the holidays. I was too young to go to these parties. So, I'd stay home with Nana and watch Lawrence Welk and his bubbles ring in the new year. Nana never drank Champagne - she celebrated with Boones Farm Strawberry Hill! And she would always let me have some with her - it was our little celebration together. This wasn't about drinking underage, or getting drunk. It was about celebrating each other, old times together and how blessed we were to have had them! Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Should old acquaintance be forgot, and old lang syne? We two have run about the slopes, and picked the daisies fine; But we've wandered many a weary foot, since auld lang syne. We two have paddled in the stream, from morning sun till dine†; But seas between us broad have roared sin...

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...