My great-grandmother passed away this morning.

Ada was 85 years old and loved desperately by many. Thinking about her I remember certain things very clearly.

She loved birds. She had several birdfeeders placed outside her trailer (yes, trailer) and her grocery list always included plenty of birdseed to fill them with.

Ada’s trailer smelled like kerosene because they kept a small kerosene heater going almost all year round. When her husband was alive the two of them would sit on their fifties-era couches under hand-knit blankets, attempting to keep warm in the 90-degree heat.

(The thing I remember most about Ben, Ada’s husband who died in my childhood, was that he chewed tobacco and smoked a pipe 24/7!)

Ada’s voice was the most refined Southern warble that I think I have ever heard.
Every birthday, Christmas, gradation… Ada sent a 50 cent card with a $5 dollar bill inside. Considering that I don’t even know how many grandchildren and great-grandchildren she had, and her life on a fixed income, this was no small sacrifice.

Whenever I visited Ada she would try desperately to get me to take reading material home with me. This consisted of decades-old Reader’s Digests and any number of age-weathered Guideposts.

My mom bought Ada’s groceries every week when she got too old to drive. Sometimes I or my brother and sister would take her if my mom couldn’t make it. Ada wanted so desperately not to be a bother… not to trouble anyone. Usually she would take us out for lunch at her favorite diner, but only if we “didn’t have other things we needed to do!” because she was so certain that we did.

Ada taught Sunday school for years at a tiny, geriatric baptist church near her home. When she grew to feeble to come to church her Sunday school class was so desperate that she continue teaching that they equipped her with a tape recorder. Ada recorded weekly lessons and someone from the church would drive out to her trailer to pick up the tape that could be played back to the class on Sunday.

Ada’s death has affected my mom deeply. When I spoke to her this morning she told me that she had been with Ada last night and she blamed herself for Ada’s death and was guilt-ridden for not staying overnight with her. Nothing Ada did or said yesterday could’ve indicated that she was near death, but of course it’s hard to convince my mom of that.

The funeral will be on Monday, which means that I can’t go since I don’t have any time off of work left, but I will remember her from Raleigh and trust that the family will be comforted by the service.