Saying goodbye
On Friday morning I’d just gotten home from dropping Caroline off at school and was feeding the puppies breakfast when I pulled my phone out of my purse and noticed I had a missed call from Gulley. She calls me every morning on her way to work, but it’s usually about 8:20 when she calls and it was just a little after 8:00.
So I called her back, figuring that she had left early to pick up donuts for work or something, but knew something was wrong as soon as she answered the phone. I don’t even think she said hello. There was just a sob and I asked, “What’s wrong?” She said, “We’ve lost Nena.”
I’m going to say what we’ve said a million times over the past three days. It shouldn’t feel like a shock to lose a ninety-year-old woman with a bad heart, but it did. She caught us all by surprise.
I don’t think I ever mentioned it, but when Grandaddy died two and a half years ago, Nena had a heart attack two weeks later. And the doctors warned the family then that her heart was in bad shape and said she probably had anywhere from two weeks to two months to live. But then she made it past those two months. And then a year. And then two years. I guess we just all began to believe those doctors had no idea what they were talking about.
Not to mention that she never stopped being fully Nena. She always wanted to hear all about what the kids were doing and what color lipstick Gulley was wearing and where I’d bought whatever purse I happened to be carrying. She’d tell us about the news in her assisted living home and wave her hands as she dismissed “the old people who do those puzzles all the time”. Honey asked her one afternoon if she wanted to go downstairs and hear a guest musician play the bagpipes and she replied, “Why on earth would I want to go listen to some old man play the bagpipes?”
Even the Sunday before she died, her youngest son had come to visit and she asked, “Where did you get your hair cut?” and when he told her she said, “Well, don’t ever go there again. It looks terrible.”
I loved her so much.
We all did.
Because the thing about Nena is she never failed to make you feel better after you’d spent time with her. She had an easy laugh, a quick smile and was the best listener. One of Honey’s friends called her on Sunday morning and made the comment that it’s hard to lose someone who was your biggest fan. And that’s what Nena did. Made us all feel like she was our biggest fan.
At the graveside ceremony yesterday morning, the preacher mentioned a line that was in Nena’s obituary. “Her true ministry was in her home.” He talked about the legacy of kindness she and Granddaddy began that carries on in their children and grandchildren. And that’s when I felt myself transition from a nice, subtle tear down my cheek to a full on cry because I have benefited from that legacy. That family took me in almost twenty-five years ago because that’s what they do. That’s what they learned by watching Nena and Granddaddy. They welcome you with open arms and feed you and love you and become your biggest fan.
I lost my Nanny two years ago. And lost my Me-Ma many years before that. They were both great ladies in their own unique ways and I learned so much from both of them. They showed me how to love and how to laugh and what it looks like to invest in the people around you. I still think of them both so often and miss them so much. There is something about the women of that generation that really knew what it meant to raise your family and make your home your true ministry. There was never a time I visited my Me-Ma that she didn’t have a steady stream of friends and relatives parading in and out of her house as she greeted them with a hug and an offer to feed them whatever she had on the stove that day.
They are women who epitomize 2 Timothy 4:7, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” They lived lives of quiet faithfulness to their husbands, their families and their friends.
Nena helped fill some of the void Nanny and Me-Ma left. We weren’t related by blood, but we were big fans of each other. She will be so missed by all of us who were blessed by the time she spent here on earth.
Those of you who have read about her over the years will be happy to know that the night before she died, she spent an hour on the phone with her best friend, Jo, lamenting that the hairdresser she’d gone to that day had made her look like an old lady and she’d had to comb the whole thing out and put her own rollers in her hair to try to fix it. She passed away later that night, sleeping peacefully in her bed with velcro rollers in her hair.
And when Honey and Gulley found her Bible later that day, they opened it up to discover it was full of pictures of herself. Nena was a fan of the selfie before the selfie was a thing. She loved a picture that, in her words, “flattered her to no end.”
But, as for me, this is how I will always picture her:
The following is a story I wrote about six years ago that remains one of my favorite Nena memories.
We went to eat lunch at Luby’s the other day and as soon as we sat down, Mimi pulled something out of her purse and handed it to me. It was a page from the Neiman Marcus Christmas Book. And look what it featured:
That’s what I thought.
And this isn’t just any jacket being sold at Neimans. It is a Juicy Couture jacket designed exclusively for Neimans and is featured as one of their HOT 100 GIFTS in this year’s book.
It retails for $400.00.
SHUT UP.
The Neiman Marcus Christmas Book is like hallowed retail ground. It actually featured his and her jets one year. And between you and me, P and I weren’t that impressed with them after they were delivered.
So, of course I had to call Nena and let her know. I called her around 1:00 p.m. yesterday because if I called any earlier than that there’s a high probability that Granddaddy would have answered the phone saying “SEVENTY-SIX DEGREES!” and then hung up on me when he realized it wasn’t someone from the local news station calling as part of their daily contest to see who just watched the weather report.
When she picked up the phone we exchanged the normal pleasantries and then I said, “Nena, I got the Neiman’s Christmas Book in the mail today.”
“OOOH HONEY, YOU DID? GOOD FOR YOU!” (Do you see why a version of her jacket being in THE BOOK is going to blow her mind? She was just thrilled I got THE BOOK in the mail.)
“Yes, I got it and you won’t believe this but they have a silver sequined jacket that looks almost just like the one you showed me. It’s one of their HOT 100 items and it costs $400.00.”
“FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS? HONEY, LISTEN, I paid $5.00 for mine. I can’t believe it’s in the Neiman’s Book. I JUST CAN’T BELIEVE IT! OOOH you have MADE MY DAY!”
“I know. You could probably sell yours and make some money.
“OH HONEY, LISTEN, I am not going to sell my jacket. I’m going to wear it shopping! So most importantly, what is the model in the picture wearing with her jacket? I just need to know what to wear with it.”
“She has on black jeans.”
“BLACK JEANS? Well HONEY, LISTEN, I don’t know about BLACK JEANS.”
Which I actually think is a good call by Nena. BLACK JEANS are precarious fashion territory.
Neiman’s might want to listen to her because she is obviously ahead of the fashion curve.
Not to mention she saved $395.00 by finding that jacket in the back of her closet.”
Goodbye, Nena. You will be missed.
