In the Mind of a Fish

Mary Miller has been lovingly called Old Old grandma.

When my husband and I married I already had 2 daughters. On our first visit to meet his family, I was more than a little nervous. I wondered how his family was going to accept this already existing family.

Upon approaching the gate at the back of grandma and grandpa Miller's house, we were met with this lovely little giggly, white haired lady. She was soon to become our dearest of all grandmas! As this little spit fire of a woman came racing at us she was verbally claiming these beautiful little girls as her very own great grand daughters. Wow! What a surprise, what a blessing!

She loved us like we had always been part of her family. On our next visit she was introduced to our third daughter, this one was the first great grandchild by blood. I admit that I was wondering if she would be more partial to this child since she was from blood, but I soon found out that she was just grandma. She loved them all and received them all the same.

On one of our following visits she got to meet our fourth daughter, this time I had no wonders and no worries. I knew she just knew how to love. This is when she was given the name that has stuck with her all these years.

This name was given to her by her third granddaughter who was about 2 and 1/2 years old. Since we also visited Art's parents when we came to visit grandma the children had two grandmas and grandpas. So in order for our 2 and 1/2 year old to communicate which grandma she was talking about she lovingly named grandma Miller "Old Old Grandma".

You would have thought grandma had been given jewels for her crown by the way she received, embraced and, yes, even delighted in her new given name! Some Grandmas would have corrected the child because of the "OLD OLD" part. But not our grandma. This was a crown given to her by her great granddaughter and she wore it with Pride!

She has since been referred to as Old Old Old grandma because of the blessing of having Great Great grandchildren.

Soon after I joined the family, grandpa became ill and was bed ridden. This is where I got to see the strength in this little woman. I am still amazed at what grandma as a woman of her age, actually for a woman of any age it would have been an extremely heavy load. But grandma, even as an Old Old grandma appeared to carry this load with an ease that I can't explain.

At this same time Grandma was doing child care for 2-4 children, keeping her home in tip top condition, doing extra laundry that was required because of grandpa's needs, keeping the coal-fire burning, making meals and waking up every 2 hours through out the night to give grandpa a drink and turn him.

Because of her diligence turning grandpa, he never got a bedsore while on her watch (there were a couple of times when grandpa did get sick and have to be put in the hospital for short stays and when he would return home he would have bedsores. She treated them until they healed.).
I still can't fully wrap my mind around how she did it but she did, and she did it WELL.

After Grandpa died, life changed for grandma and she decided to sell the homestead. She made the decision to purchase a manufactured home and live in a mobile home court in Buhl.

Even though this was a big change for grandma, when we would ask her if she was happy, she answered, "I decided when I made this move if I wasn't happy no one would ever hear me complain about it." As far as I know she kept her promise. Grandma wasn't a complainer.

When grandma was making the step from living alone to living in a group home, her family tried to get her to move closer to them. We didn't care which part of the family she would go with but it was our desire to have her next to the family. Grandma choose to remain in Idaho. We believed it was important to let grandma make her own decision, and we honored her decision even though it was difficult to see her life as we had known it fading away...

Grandma now has left this life for a much better one. Even though we would never want to say good bye to her, her family believes she is in a better place, a peaceful place, and a place where we will meet again someday. So until then, Old Old Grandma, know that you are loved by the generations you have left behind.