A Loving Tribute to my GeeGee

            I have been blessed.  Some are privileged to know their grandparents.  Even fewer are given the opportunity to know their grandparents parents.  Yet I am one of those few.  The journal entry in her dairy the day I was born read simply “Kathy had a girl today, mother and baby are doing well.”  It was such a small statement for the birth of her first great-grandchild, little did she know then the impact she would have on my life.
            Since great-grandmother Valita was too hard for a young toddler such as myself to say, she became GeeGee.  My earliest memories of visits to the little house in Macon are vivid in my mind.  Walking through the door the inevitable “My lands how you’ve grown” was always followed by her loving embrace.  The living room, small but cozy, held so much more than the old knob-turn style TV which to my amazement had no VCR or remote.  It held hours of conversation, sometimes shared between four generations.  One of her favorite stories to tell was when I was just a wee thing she had a talking teddy bear and I would stare at it with big eyes and didn’t quite know what to think of it all, it would make her bubble up with laughter just to remember.
            Bath time at GeeGee’s was always a treat since she had a special wind-up frog that would paddle around the bath with you that along with about 500 other frog things throughout the entire house.  Every Christmas and birthday it was such fun shopping for that one particular unique frog item that she would not have – beanie babies to frog socks she loved them all.
            The kitchen was also host to many events, naturally her specialty, baked macaroni and cheese which was always waiting as a warm supper.  I remember the afternoon when she took time to show us how to blow the yoke & white out of eggs to make her famous “egg-people.”  I starred in amazement as my 80 year old great-grandmother puffed and blew on that little hole until everything came out on the other end.  The boxes of yarn and trinkets she used to decorate the “people” was endless fun for a little girl.
            When things were quiet around the house I would sit in her squeaky comfy chair that rocked and look out the window at the cardinals and other birds that would feed from the back porch.  It was in this very chair that I discovered what it was she did as she sat.  On the stand next to the chair there were always three items: a newspaper, a telephone, and her journal.  These three items are all you need to explain how my great-grandmother spent her days.  It was while I sat in the chair that one of the items took my interest captive, her journal.  She let me glance through it, never wanting me to linger long on any particular day.  Her entries were often detailed, but occasionally brief.  She wrote about the weather, visits with loved friends, her sister, what she ate, the errands she ran and current news stories.  While some might find this record of her daily life dull, I was fascinated.  Since the 1970’s she had been faithfully recording in her journal and now her records include thirty-five years.  She alone was my inspiration to journal daily; to record my life on paper, just as she did.
            I loved talking to her, she could talk up a storm and I could stay neck and neck with her.  My family always said I was like her in that way.  We would spend hours in her sitting room together catching up on life and sharing stories and pictures.  If we were watching TV she would shake her head at some of the things the girls were wearing and I would agree with her.  Then on certain occasions when I was a little girl she would let me sleep in her bed, and as my family slept in the next room we would stay up talking under the covers as she told me stories from when she was a little girl.  After she would doze off I laid awake often thinking of what it was like to grow up back then and how lucky I was to have a great-grandmother who could share with me.            
            For many years my great-grandmother worked at a bank and so when I got a job at a bank as well her “buttons were popping off,” as she liked to say.  Not only did I just see and talk to her around birthdays and holidays we exchanged letters between those times.  I now possess a collection of letters that is even more precious to me, with her passing.   
            I remember when I first received my drivers learning permit.  I took her out for a drive and while I was just learning and far from perfect she said I would be a good driver, even though she never learned how she was thrilled that I was learning.
            She loved flowers and a particular favorite were pansies, as they bloomed she always commented on how cheerful they looked.  I now have an observation of my own.  Though life threw many curve balls at her she always blossomed even in stormy weather.  Wherever she was planted she grew, all who knew her would agree they were blessed by this incredible woman.  She invested so much in others, never thinking of herself.  She selflessly loved never asking in return.
            Today I am a college graduate, engaged, living in Virginia, and working at a bank.  One regret I have is that my fiancée Michael never had the opportunity met her in person, from the first time I shared about him she was always impressed and thought so highly of him, for which I am truly grateful.  We will miss her next summer when we begin our new life together.  But she now knows a new life far greater than any on this earth as she sits in heaven with Jesus Christ her Lord and Savior.
When I moved to Virginia at the beginning of this summer my grandparents gave me something of hers I will now treasure always, her silverware set.  Now every day as I eat I am reminded of the wonderful woman whom I loved so very very much.  GeeGee, while you always spoke of God’s rich blessing in your life I will always cherish the blessing of twenty-one years of knowing you.  I look forward to being reunited with you again one day in heaven.  While the impact you left you will never know, we will always remember…  I love you GeeGee.

Love your Great-Granddaughter,

Rachel Kathleen Olds