Grandma Hazel

  I have had a lot of time on my hands lately due to a problem with my neck. I have been off work since November. While that sounds awful (and sometimes it is), it has given me a lot of time to think and appreciate my job and paycheck more. Ha ha!
  Seriously, though, I have spent a lot of time "covering the couch" as we call it around here. Or, at least, what I call it sometimes. That has mostly been while sleeping or watching terrible daytime television. I DID NOT miss any of these programs whilst working, I can truly say. Especially since we are out in the boonies and on a tight budget so we do not have cable, satellite or anything other than the good old fashioned antenna. Jerry Springer was never more sleazy. Neither can I say that I have much faith in our nation's morals when you have so many women looking for their "baby's daddy" on Maury Povich.
  I haven't watched soap operas since my twenties and do not intend to get back on that band wagon after all these years. My grandmother was an avid soap opera fan. She arranged her daily activities so she would never miss her "stories" as she called them. Although I loved my grandmother's spirit (and her chocolate gravy!), I did not share her love of day time television.
  Grandma Hazel loved Bob Barker and "The Price Is Right". She loved a lot of game shows. I can see her now, sitting in her rocker, chewing on a toothpick and chuckling the way she did that always made me love being around her. She was a red head who would stick up for what she believed in and some say that she stuck her nose in where she shouldn't have. I only know that she gave me good advice, was there when I had both my children (I stayed with her while I was pregnant with my youngest son, Brandon, so my husband could work and not worry). She was saucy but never what I would call mean spirited.
  She had a way of saying that a girl or woman was "right pretty in the face" which meant, usually, that the poor  female in question was usually overweight but otherwise pretty.
  My grandmother had a car accident, which was completely her fault. She had a habit of crossing a busy intersection near her home without looking, assuming the other drivers would get out of her way "because she was old" as she told me once. Even though I had told her that people couldn't tell how old she was in a car, she continued to drive that way especially across this one intersection.
  The accident left her in a coma. After the coma, Grandma Hazel recovered but was never the same. She couldn't take care of herself and, sometimes, didn't know who or where she was.
  When she went in the nursing home, I was determined to go see her regularly. I wanted, also, to bring my boys to see her. She loved Jonathan and Brandon as much as any of her large brood of children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. And there were lots to love!
  At first we went every weekend. My grandmother and I spent most of the time crying. My sons asked us both why we were crying. Grandma said "Because we are just so happy". I am not sure why she was crying as she and I didn't discuss it . As for me, it was breaking my heart to see my spunky grandma in such a pitiful condition. There was more than once that I had thought she would have preferred to have died in that accident.
  Maybe it was cowardice on my part or just an unwillingness to face the truth, but I soon stopped going to see my grandma. My boys were too young to ask many questions and soon forgot about our weekly visits but I never let them forget her.
  I only saw her a few more times at relatives' houses when they took her from the nursing home for family get togethers. I never knew what to say and was always consumed with guilt for neglecting to visit her. All I could do was sit close and hold her hand, which looked so small and frail in mine. I hope now that she knew of the love that I could not express in those moments.
  Hazel Inez Sullivan Horn passed away in 2006. I know, because of my faith, that she is alive and with my grandfather and all her friends and family and surrounded by the love and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. I hope to see her one day and maybe we can share rocking chairs and talk about Bob Barker and her "stories". I am just glad she was a part of my story.