Today is my grandmother’s 100th birthday. My sister and I found this photo over Christmas while we were going through some of Mom’s boxes that we hadn’t been through yet. She’s sitting in what looks to me like the backyard of their house in Tipton Hill, in Mitchell County, NC, with my grandfather, Willard. This picture is undated, but I think this may have been taken in the 1940s.
I’ve thought a lot about what to say about her, but I get all choked up about it and can’t seem to put a sentence together that can really say how much I love her and how much she means to me. Her name is Ruby Byrd Whitson. She grew up in what are now empty woods behind a church that sits on a grassy knoll not far from the house she and Willard raised five kids in, including my mother, Willa, who was the oldest. She is funny and kind and tells great stories and always holds my hand for hours on end when I visit. She quilted and sewed all the time when I was a kid and would visit for weeks every summer. She filled her time crocheting and reading until last year when her eyesight started going bad. She moved several years ago to a nursing home because it’s so difficult, no, nearly impossible, to find people to care for older people in their homes in Mitchell County. She doesn’t need round-the-clock nursing care, just someone to cook food every once in a while and to be there to make sure she doesn’t fall. My Aunt Ginger and Aunt Peggy visit her all the time, even though they live in Indiana and Georgia now.
Today, we’re meeting my sister, who is driving up the mountain with her seven-year-old daughter. My sister is also nearly about to give birth to a son they plan to name Whitson after my mom and Ruby and Willard. So, this day feels so big to me and the importance isn’t lost but I haven’t yet processed it or thought about what it all means. Grandmama’s made it to 100 — and hopefully well beyond — when my grandfather, mother and father didn’t. And today I plan to tell her how thankful I am to spend this day with her, how thankful I am that she’s been in my life. Today, I’ll sit beside her and hold her hand.
