My Mema (9.9.15 - 11.4.12)

On November 5, 2012, my amazing Mema (Willie Mime Johnson) passed away. At 97 year old by only a month, it feels odd to say that it happened so fast but in all reality it did. Maybe it was a blessing but my heart can't help but hurt as I type this opening sentence and tears start to pour out of my eyes. I've waited almost five weeks to journal this in hopes I might be able to keep it together enough to share what I want Carter, Addie, our unborn child and their children to remember about this incredible woman whom helped raise me.

On Saturday morning, my mom had told Blake and I that she wasn't having a good couple of days with severe pain. We were trying to find the perfect time to take the kid's by in their Halloween costumes Saturday or Sunday. I had just sat and talked with her as normal that past Tuesday morning. Then Thursday mid morning when I stopped by for a visit, her nurse had told me she had been in some pain so had decided to take a hydrocodone and was still asleep. Little did I know that Tuesday morning would be the last time I would ever hold a conversation with her or Thursday would be the last time I would see her peacefully sleeping. I'll never forget that Sunday morning I walked into her apartment with my mom and how I saw my strong and courageous Mema.

I want to share what I said at the funeral just four days after she left us on this Earth.

"This past Sunday afternoon, I witnessed first hand, what the circle of life is all about. As I sat there, six months pregnant, beside my mother with my hand on her back as she desperately tried to calm my Mema during in her last few hours, I experienced what life is about from beginning to end. I’m not going to lie, it was an emotional experience I don't want to experience often in life but I know it's an important part of growing up.

Speaking of my mom and I know this is on behalf of my sweet Mema, Cheryl was everything to her and she didn’t disappoint her in the last couple of years. My mom dedicated her every waking hour to making sure that Mema was well taken care of and above all was able to stay in her same apartment complex that she had lived in for twenty-seven years. Many nights, even sleeping on the old couch, my mom never wavered once knowing that she wasn’t going to remove her mother from the environment that helped her thrive. I know Mema knew how lucky she was for that and wow!... What 97 year old lady can say she lived independently in her same home until she took her last breath… and it’s all because of Cheryl!

What will I remember about Mema?? So much! Her crystal blue eyes, her LONG perfectly manicured nails, her handwriting, her worn blue chair with the TV always on and the latest newspaper at her feet, the peppermints on her coffee table, bacon wrapped fillet minons she’d pan fry from HEB and Sprite she always had when my tummy was upset.

As each of you know, this lady was strong and independent and in my thirty-two years of loving her, I NEVER heard her complain about something going on in her own life. She was always there to listen to others vent their own problems. But in the last several years, she had really become the heart and main connection that our entire family used. During my regular weekly visits, even when life was crazy and I hadn’t talked to my sister in months or my mom in a couple of weeks, she was the one central point that we all, always, checked in with. She knew everything about everyone and I would be filled in on one visit on Erin and Matt and Joe and Cheryl’s where-abouts.

There are numerous pictures I have in my head that I will want to always remember Mema for, but my husband Blake, reminisced about the time just THREE short years ago at the park next door to my house, where Carter had talked his Mema into sliding down the slide with him. So here is this 94 year old flying down behind her three year old great-grandson! That’s what I will remember and I pray that each of you lock in your own special memory of this amazing lady!"

  It was harder to get through those words than I had initially thought but it felt good to share them with everyone there. I pray that my three children and their grand children will be able to look back on that and see a glimpse of what their "Mema" had meant to everyone around her.

My Mema had moved to San Antonio from Alice when I was around six years and old and my little sister, Erin was just shy of one. My parents had just separated and my mom's dad (Mema's husband) Charles had just passed away. Mema moved into Mariposa Apartments, only about a five minute drive from our Old Moss house and became my mom's rock and therefore both Erin and I's, as well. When my mom had to travel to Dallas or New York or stay late for inventory, it was Mema who was always there caring for us. She made life seem smooth for Erin and I, in what I am sure could have been, a severely hectic time. She was selfless and never complained. She really was our rock.

Mema had been a school teacher for years and years, both in San Antonio and later Alice, TX before she retired. She lived through World War II and knew a time hardly anyone alive can recall filled with war and rations. Many times, Mema told her she would send her sugar and butter ration coupons home to her mom while she was working soon after college. I can only imagine how living through those times made you tough.

Mema was the oldest of three girls and a boy named "Bubba." I remember quite well her youngest sister, Mary Nell who lived in Vernon. I would spend a couple of weeks up there in North Texas each summer with Mema watching Bold and The Beautiful, Young and The Restless and As The World Turns. Her middle sister, Miram, the kindest, sweetest lady alive lived in Flowermound with her husband Floyd. She just passed away earlier this year due to brain cancer and I am sure Mema seeing her last baby sibling die, it had to be harder than words could describe. But I never saw Mema shed a tear or even want to talk about it.

In the last twelve hours at her apartment that Sunday evening, I just looked into those amazing blue eyes that were wide open, locked on me when I was in the room and repeatedly told her how much I loved her, how much she means to me, how amazing she is, how I will never forget her and how she has done everything for us and it's okay to let go now and be with her husband, two sisters and brother in Heaven. It hurt begging her to let go but it felt right after all she had dedicated much of her life to us. 

I often ask myself over the last five weeks, will it get easier? Can I ever think of her again and not instantly go back to those last ever twelve hours of her life here on Earth? I want to remember the nearly thirty-three years of the real Mema... the strong, courageous and steadfast Mema but for now I am trying to soak in the emotions of this first BIG and CLOSE death I have felt.

Things that will always remind me of my Mema:
#1660 (her same gate code I pushed for 28 years), 828-5416 her phone number I dialed the same amount of years, individually bacon wrapped filets and canned green beans she would cook for me every single time I spent the night while growing up, sitting down in front of the TV around that dark octagon coffee table, Sprite whenever I was there and especially if my tummy was upset, her telling me all the time how "lucky I was to find Blake!" her crytal blue eyes, her long perfectly manicured nails, her amazing hand writing and how she addressed all of our wedding invitations in 2005, how she always kept us all updated on the news and what was going on, how sharp her mind always was even until the end, the amount of amazing friends that she had in and around the apartments that were flooding her apartment in the last week to say goodbye, her telling us the LBJ story of how they closed down the lake when VP Johnson was there and they got stopped by the police for being out on the lake and most importantly how she was always there for me, my sister and my mom, not matter what.