Tilley

As I sit here thinking about what I should write, I am feeling many things. We lost our dear Gramma Tilley today.

I want to write down a few memories before they fade. Gramma Tilley was 84 years old. She was the youngest of 11 children and the last surviving. She was born in Big Flat, Arkansas and moved here when she was just a teenager. She married my grandpa Paul and had 4 children.



One of those children was my dad. He is her oldest son and he kept us close to her. It seems like we saw her almost every day when we were kids. She would come over and do ironing, or we would walk to her house after a day at the pool to get an ice cream. When we went to Joe's Valley in the summer we would go back and forth between our cabin and hers. Every Sunday, NO MATTER WHAT we would head to gramma's for dinner. I never appreciated it until I was married with a family of my own. She was an amazing cook and even had a restaurant of her own once. She made the best spaghetti, rigatoni's, meatloaf, and mashed potatoes with pea gravy. She always had a cold pop or an ice cream sandwich waiting for us.


She was the hardest worker I knew as a kid. She cleaned houses and waited on everyone all the time. She taught me how to iron a shirt and how to clean a dirty wall. She was always moving around and rarely took a break. She loved to fish and she loved her cabin. She didn't really say much unless she really had something to say! She always had a stack of National Enquirers for enquiring 12 year old minds like mine, even though I never really understood what I was reading.



As she grew older, the Sunday dinner's stopped and I am ashamed to say that I saw her much less. I just assumed she would always be right down the street. She was always so happy to see my family - she loved watching the kids play and would always have a full candy jar and legos to play. After her recent diagnosis, we knew that her time was short. I knew Gramma was not much for long boring visits, so we decided to give Josh the job of mowing her lawn. She has always been very worried about her yard, so I figured it would be a great opportunity. I watched her watching him out the window. I made me happy to know that we were doing something that was important to her. She faded a little more each week, but she even a few days ago when the lawn was finished, she made sure to give Josh a crisp $20 bill. My kids got to hug her one last time on Tuesday and I am grateful for that opportunity I had to tell her "I love you." I hope she knew how much we all loved her.