In memory of Ida May Johnson
Colder in the South than in the North
Atmosphere shifted
Your transition near completed
My world Shifted
Only able to sit right again with the remembrances of:
Annual gorgeous dresses that you'd make for my first day of school
Hands of blackjack before bed at the kitchen table
Best when we had pennies to trade
Church, Faith, and Fire
Breakfast eggs scrambled hard with cheddar and chives
even my own momma couldn’t get me to eat eggs
just one of our secrets in our hearts.
Fried fish
Bits of dust on the bed as we scratched lottery tickets at night excited about our winnings.
Many bad habits learned from you that I treasure because they were with you
Trips to the fabric store for ginghams and stripes and polka dots and ribbon to make bows at the shoulders of my fancy dresses.
Your skirts, heels, dresses, dressed to perfection.
Your garden, fear of lizards, strange that you had a garden in Georgia but I never told you.
And chicken with cream of chicken soup baked to perfection on 350 degrees until it was brown and falling off the bone with hot rolls on the dinner table at 5:00 pm sharp.
Six grains of sugar in all things created
Queen of dinner in under an hour
Banana ice cream after dinner
Your side-splitting humor and the jokes you played until I got mad or cried then we'd laugh together.
The Nilla wafers and peanut butter crackers on the counter in the jars and canisters
And special snacks in the dining room on the back of the door.
The smell of pine trees as I’d get close to your home
The space you predictably shared with me.
Our hearts, a space we predictably shared with one another.
We will always be at home in one another's hearts.
Goodbye Ida, the name you asked me to call you when I was five years old because you were too fierce and looked too young to be called Granny in public.
My grandmother.
A proper goodbye is the only way my world would sit right again.
Remembrances of all things that mattered.
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