Reflections

10 years.

It's hard for me to think about the events of Sept. 11, 2001 without thinking of the events that took place on Sept. 10, 2001. That was the day my grandmother died. She was my last living grandparent, and she was a fiesty thing!

She was born Ollie Wilma Fears (and she hated her name!) on April 7, 1917 in Moore County, Tennessee. She married when she was 13, had twin boys (one of them my dad) when she was 15. Giving birth almost killed her. She had two more children, a girl and another boy. Her husband was a mean drunk, who eventually left her for her best friend. She did what she had to do to support her family, working lots of odd jobs. She remarried, but that ended in divorce as well. Eventually she married a third time, to a sweet man named Alphonso Skrocki... we called him Grandpa Al (or Grandpa Owl if you were too little to understand the difference!).

Most of my life she and Grandpa Al lived in Dearborn, Michigan, which is a suburb of Detroit. She owned her own business, selling Viviane Woodard Cosmetics and Shaklee Products. Her little shop was attached to a hair salon. I remember visiting them 2 or 3 times, and they came to visit us a couple of times as well. It was always fun when they came to visit. She would spoil us rotten, and get us stuff even if my mom said no. Once when we went to visit them, she drove us to Canada... we crossed a bridge to get there, and drove in a tunnel to get back.

In the early 1980's she and Al joined the church, and were eventually sealed in the Washington, DC temple. In the late 80's she closed her little shop, and she and Grandpa Al moved back to Tennessee. Her youngest son moved in with them as well. Al died a few years later, and then Uncle Richard passed about 18 months after that. She missed them both terribly.

The morning of Sept. 11th, I was getting myself and the kids packed up to go to my parent's house for a few days so I could be up there for the funeral, and help with whatever preparations I could. Barry called me and told me to turn on the tv. I sat there with my children all around me and cried and cried. We eventually got ourselves all packed up and on the road. As I sat around with my family that afternoon, we talked about how we now understood why Granny had been taken when she was. We could just envision her in Heaven, helping where needed.

My grandmother was a no-nonsense kind of person. She was very protective of her family.

She was an awesome cook, and I am blessed to have some of her recipes, written in her own hand.

She had a fun sense of humor, and I think I can remember her laugh most of all when I think of her.

Despite her humble beginnings, she became a world traveler, and she had a collection of towels from lots of different hotels.

She was a successful businesswoman. She had many loyal customers, and kept in contact with most of them even after she moved away.

I wish she had kept a journal.

I'm thankful that she joined the church, and was able to be sealed to her Al. That was a great comfort to all of us after her death - the realization that they were together again.

When she died, she was known as Jean Skrocki. Jean was the last name of her first husband, but she liked it better than Ollie Wilma, so she took it as her first name.

I'm grateful for the heritage she left me. I'm grateful that I was able to call her my Granny.