one year

"for whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God."

Ruth 1:16

i love you a bushel and a peck.

t-giving blues

This morning, I decided to be a poopy pants blogger and tell the ENTIRE WORLD that I am taking a T-giving internet machine break.

Do you want to know why? Because I'm the T-giving Grinch this year. I just overheard a woman at a diner talk about how she just couldn't wait to get the Holidays over with and my immediate reaction was, "Oh I just can't stand people that are so bah-humbug about Holidays" and here I am microsoft painting my feelings away.

I could be real chipper dipper and tell you everything I am thankful for (I will try not to get nausea reading the 1,000,0008498759827489 things people are thankful for this week -see...there I go again being a big fat grinch) because of course, and I hope you know this, I am so blessed and thankful for many things.

But.

I am sad.

Everything is changing so fast. It has felt that way since college. I just feel like I have been inside of some wonderful tornado giving blessings and changing everything I have known all at the same time. Thanksgiving will not ever be the same for me again. I can't go back "home" because the family and home that was once there is not (this is my inner divorced child speaking). And that's okay, life evolves and things change and I have my big girl panties on and can deal with that but Holidays like Thanksgiving just bring the memories to life and I can't help but feel......sadness.

Last year I was planning my visit home to Norton to spend time with Mamaw. Last Thanksgiving she was feeling better. This Thanksgiving she is gone.

Last Thanksgiving Mamaw gave the prayer and she cried the entire way through it just as I am crying all the way through writing this. I wonder if she knew it was her last Thanksgiving? I guess none of us really know.

Today and this week, I am happy for you, I really am. I can't wait to read over all of your posts and pictures about your family celebrations. But for me, this week is a little sad. I am mourning over the death of not only my Mamaw but my past. Maybe this is necessary to move on to my new family? Maybe we all mourn the loss of our childhood as we move into this new phase in life? Maybe when I have my own babies and start new traditions with my lil' Crummett family I will not feel this way?

But for now, I hope you don't mind, but I think I am going to take the week off to take care of myself. I get to sing on Friday and that will surely be a bright spot. I know she is watching me.

Love and blessings.

I have a story to tell.

Ruth Anne Gorsage was born on June 29, 1935. She came into this world as a blessing to her parents. They had tried to have children many times, all resulting in miscarriages or death shortly after birth. Mammaw often told me the story of her birth and I remember asking her to tell it to me just a month or so ago. Her Daddy worked an entire month to earn $5 so they could hire a doctor to deliver the baby. Oh what a blessing that $5 brought. It brought my Mammaw, Ruth Anne, into this world. She was the apple of her mother and daddy's eye.

Her mother, also named Ruth, was sick. She had tuberculosis. She fought hard to live for her husband and new daughter. She tried treatment after treatment to help with her disease. I remember my Mammaw telling me her vague memory of going to visit her mom in the sanatorium. You see, they didn't know what to do with patients that had diseases like TB back then. So they were put in sanitariums with all of those confused souls. Some in there for just reason, others in a position like Ruth.

Ruth, desperate to get better, joined a clinical trial. The thought was that they could blow air into TB patients lungs and it would "blow out" the TB. Oh how far medicine has come. But for Ruth, that was the last breath she would take. The experiment was too much for her little body and she passed away when my Mammaw was only 8 years old. She was beautiful. Dark, black hair, a rounded face and sweet smile. Mammaw didn't remember a lot about her mom, but she remembered her singing. "She was always humming and singing", Mammaw would tell me on one of the countless times that I asked her to tell me about her "real" mom.

What a blessing Ruth brought into this world. She gave me my Mammaw. The sweetest, warmest most wonderful person I have ever known. I can tell you this with all certainty. I never, ever saw or heard a mean word come out of my Mammaws mouth. She was the closest thing to an angel that I have ever come across. She lived a blessed life and bore 5 children, saw 7 grandchildren grow to adults and was blessed with 5 great-grandchilren. People all over the WORLD have been touched by knowing her.

My Mammaw had been sick for many years. I could see it in her beautiful eyes. She wanted to live for her family, but oh how tired she was. Her last option was chemotherapy and she bravely choose the treatment. Just like her mother, her little body could not take the treatment. My Mammaw, the woman you see me smooching in my header picture, died on January 12, 2010.

I will hold her in my heart forever. Such change has happened in my life over the past 2 months. But I am ready now. Mammaw was so proud of me and Andrew. She loved us. She believed in us. And I know that she believed in me. We had a special relationship that I am so thankful for. She helped mold me into the person that I am today and Mammaw, I will keep my chin up and keep on singin' and believin' for the both of us.

love.

Mammaw and me in the hospital on New Years Day, 2010.

Easter, 2009. She was so beautiful.

Christmas Day 2009. Mammaw gave me a ukulele and taught me two songs. We sang and played all morning together. I will never forget that day.