I came home from school when I was twelve one autumn day and was greeted by the scene of Mom and Dad crying hysterically. Grandmom Hugar had just passed away. I looked for Mary Kay and Barb and we all ran to our shared bedroom and cried. We wished we could have seen her more often,than once or twice a year. We would never have her rhubarb and strawberry pies again. We could never be in her barn again. I could never read in her pine trees again, and come down in time for some homemade biscuits and honey from her own bees. God, why did You let this happen? We drove three hours to Nannie's house, my Mom's mother, and the entire family camped out there. In the morning, we loaded up the car and went to the funeral home. I said I would wait outside, as I did not want to say my goodbyes to Grandmom in THAT PLACE! I guess that was my own way of protecting myself. My sisters came out of the funeral home within a few minutes and said that there was a huge argument going on about her estate. One uncle in particular was being very nasty. As young as we were, we three girls were totally disgusted by such a display of greed at the funeral home, of all places. I ended up and went in and gave a dirty look to the offending uncle. Mary Kay and Barb and I walked up to the casket, knelt down, and saw how horribly much weight Grandmom had lost. Her nose looked like a white bone. Her thumbs were flattened. The dress she had on was way too big for her. My Mother shrieked out loud when she saw Grandmom. We were traumatized by the whole ordeal. Apparently Grandmom was suffering with cancer for several years, and she would wear layers of clothing to hide her incredible weight loss.
After the funeral, there was a big dinner to be held at the Grange Hall, actually a stone's throw from Grandmom's house. It was so surreal to be having a big dinner, across the street from her house, the house of a wonderful loving woman who nurtured anyone and everyone. A house we could no longer enter and ever again, be greeted by her melodious voice and love.
We girls did not want to partake in the dinner. We had seen too much offensive behaviour for our aunts and uncles. We walked in, saw everyone stuffing their face with food and left in disgust. We walked a half mile down the country road to the cemetery Grandmom was just buried in. We got to her grave and the dirt was still piled high and littered with flower baskets. Her headstone had Grandpop's birth and death dates on it but of course her death date was not yet engraved. We sat on an adjacent tomb stone and had our own time with Grandmom. We told her how much we loved her and we were sorry some of our aunts and uncles were such creeps, and that we loved her and would rather spend time with her then to stuff our face with food and be happy at such a time as this. We were there until it started to get dark. We started to walk back when Dad came by with the car to pick us up. No one said a word as he drove us back to the Grange Hall. Across the street we observed her house to be totally dark, shut up with an auctioneer's truck parked in front of it. I begged Dad to let us in the house, as I so wanted to run up her stairs, to go into the sunroom and lay on the bear rug carpet, to smell her house, which to me was the scent of pure, unconditional love....Well, couldn't we see the barn again at least Dad? No, it was all over, he kept saying. I thought he was so mean that day as it would have been no problem for him to let us at least go in the barn. But in retrospect, here was a grieving son, mourning his much beloved Mother, a stoic man in deep pain, and he did not want anyone to find solace that day. Nor was any found.
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