year old self asked. My grandma then proceeded to take me to her bedroom where her
sewing things were kept. She said, “It’s called embroidery”. Mimi took out her sewing
box and threaded a needle. While my mom and sister were still waiting in the other room,
she helped me embroidery a whole little scene with a flower, tree, the sun, and some
grass. She asked me if I wanted to learn how to sew, and I said “Yes!” She taught me how
to hand-stitch right at that moment.
The next day, when we were over at her apartment, she took me over to JCPenny without saying anything. We walked into the pajama department of JCPenny and started down the pajama aisles. We found some Barbie pajamas and she bought them for me. I still wondered what we were going to do. When we got back to the apartment, she laid the pajama shirt out on a table, and then went and dug out her sewing box. She helped me embroidery my name “Anna Gibson” on the back of the shirt in pink.
About a year later, I found some old fabric that I didn’t think was very
attractive, but it was special to me because it was from my Mimi. We sewed together a little
mismatched-fabric quilt for my Barbie bed. My Mimi found some cotton for it and we filled it. I
have kept the piece of fabric, pajamas, and blanket, and have not let my sister wear my special
pajamas since.
In fifth grade, we got a packet for Thanksgiving Break to write in and answer
questions in paragraph form. One of the questions was about how special grandparents are. I had
three at the time, and she was the only one not in a nursing home. I wrote about her, and yet that same Thanksgiving Break, something very tragic happened. My Mimi was still in her apartment, but
confined to a hospital bed in her living room because she was diagnosed with cancer. I was really
mad at the cancer. Mimi was my best friend. I slept over with her, went swimming with her, and
sometimes we just hung out. Her apartment complex had ice cream at three in the afternoon, and
we would walk over and get some everyday. I would go to her aerobics classes with her and I still
remember the exercises they had us do. She was my favorite grandparent I had at the time and
the one I was closest to. I feel really sad when I think about how my sister never gets to
experience what a great grandma she was. She never saw Mimi as the active, loving, person I admired so much.
The most difficult part was on the day after Thanksgiving. My mom wanted to visit her,
and see how she was doing. I didn’t really feel like going that day and kept saying that I didn’t
want to go. But we went anyway. I haven’t forgotten what I saw when we arrived. My dad was
there, on his knees next to her bed, holding her hand and talking to her. He kept repeating “Pray
to Jesus, you can go now”. The nurse was by the window crying and yelling out to God. My
mom pushed me into another room and said “Don’t look,” and “Call Aunt Karen and tell her
Mimi is dying”.
When I was dialing, I disobeyed and looked anyway. Mimi sat up, opened her
eyes real wide like she was seeing heaven, opened her mouth faintly like she was going to say something, and then she closed her eyes, and was gone. (My dad said later that “As soon as Mary and the girls had arrived, she knew it was okay to go.”) Just as that was happening, my Aunt Karen answered the phone and said “Hello?” (My Aunt Karen, Uncle Benny, and father were her children. She was the only one not there.) I was barely able to choke out the words “Mimi died”. I will never forget what she said. “Oh. Okay.”, with as much sympathy as a piece of wood. It was almost too much for my ten year old little frame to handle. I hung up and fell down crying because of how apathetic she was. I will never forget that day.
I think that’s why I am so close to my dad. He reminds me of her. Sometimes, I just want
to go visit her in heaven. It makes me collapse on the floor in agony when I think about her being
gone. Most of the time I think of it as a short vacation that she’s left for and I’ll join her
someday. But the memories still always come flooding back and sometimes there are new ones. I
miss her immensely, but I know that one day I’ll get to walk those streets of gold with her.
