A Lady Knows When It's Time To Go

Ready to Go

Grandma sat in the dining room chair with one hand resting on her big white purse that always smelled of juicy fruit chewing gum. With the other hand she restlessly tapped the Formica-topped dining table as the family around her discussed what we might do or where we might go on this sunny Saturday afternoon.

"Somebody better decide something soon," Ernie, one of the grandsons, said, "because Grandma's ready to go."

We all laughed, even Grandma, because Ernie had hit the nail on the head. Grandma was always ready to go. It didn't matter if we were talking about hooking up a flat-bed trailer behind Uncle Johnny's old blue pick-up truck and going for a family hayride over the dirt roads that criss-crosses the blackland prairie which envelops the small Northeast Texas town in which we live or if we were talking about getting as many people into one car as we could to take advantage of the Trail Drive-In's dollar-a-carload movie night, Grandma was ready to go.

Despite two heart attacks and chronic high blood pressure, Grandma kept going. When the women from the Baptist Church called and invited her to go on an old-fashioned train ride in East Texas, Grandma was ready to go. When the local Senior Citizens group asked her to accompany them on a trip to Branson, Missouri to attend the country music shows, Grandma was ready.

Grandma was only 51 years old when Granddad died of a heart attack in 1957. She worked at the local sewing factory with about 50 other women. It was hard work with low pay and no benefits, but it was the only work available for a woman who didn't drive a car. "I could drive a Model-T," Grandma would proudly announce, "but when they came out with these new-fangled cars that don't need a crank to start it, I never learned to drive one of them."

She had raised her six kids and was now enjoying the grandchildren. She enjoyed playing cards and dominoes with her grandkids. We all got a kick out of hearing Grandma mix up an old saying when she was playing a game. "Well, you're sure changing the color of the horse in the middle of the bridge," she might say when her partner would change from leading hearts to spades in a game of cards.

But without a doubt her favorite thing was watching her grandchildren play sports.

She watched her youngest grandson quarterback the local high school football team to a district championship. In his final game the locals were winning 6-0 with just a couple of minutes left to play.

One of the family members seated next to Grandma said she hoped we could score one more time. Grandma turned and said, "It's fine with me if it ends just like this." With that said, Grandma was ready to go.

Her funeral was held on a school day, but because she was so loved by many of her grandkids' friends, many who called her Grandma, the school closed for the afternoon. She was "Grandma" to more than just her grandchildren.

She may have suffered a heart attack or it could have been a stroke. We never knew. It was hard for us to let Grandma go that last time, but we were comforted by the fact that when she left, she was exactly where she wanted to be -- and like always, she was ready to go.