On New Year’s Eve, my wonderful wife, Cecelia, got a phone call from her dad that we had been expecting to get any time.
Her 101-year-old grandmother, Mary Updike, had passed away after spending the past two weeks in a nursing home.
For most of her life though, she had lived out on her own in rural West Virginia, in the home where she raised her two children. About six or seven years or so ago she went to live with my wife’s parents, George and Ruth, for a short time before going to live with Cecelia’s aunt, Carolyn.
Grannie, as many of us in the family called her, was a character. She could be stubborn, opinionated and most definitely a hoot much of the time.
It was always fun to hang around her and talk to her. Fortunately, I stayed on her good side most of the time. She often referred to me as a “good boy.”
We last saw Grannie about four years ago when we stopped off at Caroline’s house on our way back from a vacation in Pennsylvania. She had not changed much from the previous times that we had seen her except that her hearing was a bit worse and she was using a walker.
Overall, she lived a good, full life on her own terms, which is something that not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to say.
Suffice it to say, that my wife has good aging genes, but not as good as a cousin or two of hers, who had grannie as a grandmother on one side of the family, and a grandfather on the other side of the family, who lived to be over 100 too. Who knows, they might live to be 110.
When it comes to in-laws, I did pretty good.
People are frequently impressed when I talk about my wife’s mother, Ruth Updike, who a few years back at the age of 86, fell and broke her hip while weed eating. A few weeks later, she fell out of the wheelchair at home while Swiffering the floor waiting for the physical therapist to show up at the house. (True story.)
I frequently say that my mother and father-in-law are my retirement heroes. They are constantly out running the roads going places. I hope to have nearly that much energy when I am their age, but I doubt that I will. (Truthfully, I might be hard pressed to keep up with them now…LOL.)
One year, Cecelia and I drove over to her parent’s house in West Virginia, to surprise them for an after Christmas or after Thanksgiving meal. I forget, which. Her brother met us over there too. It is about a three- and one-half-hour drive if Cecelia is behind the wheel. It is closer to four hours if I am driving, which usually means that we are traveling the speed limit most of the trip…LOL.
One wise soul suggested that we call ahead of time to make sure that they were going to be home, but this advice was ignored. Of course, they weren’t home when we got there. They came home a few hours later, and we got to see them for about 30 minutes before we had to leave and head back home.
(FYI-Now, it is standard practice for my wife to call a couple of days ahead of time before we go to West Virginia to make sure that her parents are going to be home.)
My wife’s brother, William Updike, is exactly one day older than me. He is an interesting guy with master’s degrees in both archeology and historical preservation. I like to hang out with him, in part, because he is one of the few people in my age bracket that has more gray hair than I do, which takes some work.
Our gray hairs were hard earned. (I suspect that my wife has something to do with a lot of them on both of our heads…LOL.)
Grannie, you will be missed by all of us who knew you. Rest in peace.
