This time two days ago, I was sitting at the Commissioner's Luncheon during the 2015 GOAL and Rick Perkins Award Celebration for the Technical College System of Georgia. A few hours later, I was named the 2015 Georgia Occupational Award of Leadership recipient.
It has been a whirlwind, and I want to write more about it, but I have to wait.
Today, I'm in Birmingham with the family, sitting watch while my beloved grandmother is dying.
There's so much I want to say about her, about how she saved me from postpartum despair when Max was a baby by sitting with me for hours at her kitchen table, holding the baby to give me a break. About how she used to sit me on her lap and draw me pictures of curly-haired girls with belly buttons. About how she used to sing constantly, to the kids or to the room or to my grandfather who sang back until he died in 2006.
When I saw her two weeks ago, we talked about the lightly-glazed lemon and vanilla cakes I used to make for her--because she didn't like chocolate or a lot of frosting.
She has fought ovarian cancer valiantly for more than five years. She doesn't deserve the discomfort that comes with this. My dad and aunts and uncles are doing their best to keep her comfortable in these last hours.
I'm in her porch swing now, on a stormy-to-be spring day, listening to her wind chimes and the song birds she loves.
There's so much I will say in the days and weeks to come, about my work and my award and Rango and the boys, about the family and about meeting Rango's family for the first time next week.
But right now, while it's just watchful waiting, all I can say is, "I love you, Maw-maw."
Sent from my pretentious iPhone
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