Amazing Grace (Revised)

“Amazing Grace”1

In the southern state of Alabama, where the smell of bacon and the hum of “Amazing Grace” in the morning becomes as routine as brushing your teeth, there was a remarkable woman with the heart of an angel and the love of God in her blood. 2

My great grandmother Ethel, Grandma as we called her, was a very religious person. She had a huge heart and the stories of a soldier who had survived near starvation during the depression and seeing family members die at her feet. She was the wisest person in our neighborhood, despite only the completion of a third grade education.  She was a hardheaded, simple woman who liked things done the old way. 3

Her toughest battle began with a fall down the back steps and a stubbornness to avoid doctors. She hurt her arm in a three-step drop and assured everyone she would be just fine. She created a homemade sling and always refused medication for the pain. She continued to work in her garden one handedly gently picking ripe tomatoes without a trace of pain crossing her face. 4

I was babysitting the child of a family friend the night of her paralyzing accident. I slept soundly while she lay in the floor of her apartment in her own vomit shaking uncontrollably during a stroke that would change her life. The next morning when I awoke, I was shoved into a vehicle and carried to the Baptist Memorial hospital in Gadsden. I sat in a waiting room full of sobbing family members, the stench of Clorox, and terrible hospital pudding.  The doctors, after waiting for five hours, told us the progressive steps to the massive stroke that almost caused her death. The fall had caused the blood from her arm to clot at the base of her brain causing a brain aneurysm that led to the stroke. After her surgery we were allowed to see her for five minutes each while she was in the recovery room. She was incoherent and could not keep her eyes open for more than two minutes. Her once beautiful white wavy hair had been half shaven where they had opened her scalp to save her life. She was connected to so many tubes there was not any use in counting them all, and monitors telling us that she was still alive despite her pale skin and shallow breathing. The doctors informed us that there was major brain damage. She could not swallow, feed herself, and her mind had been reduced to that of an infant. After her surgery and a slight recovery, she was sent to a rehab in Birmingham to learn how to walk, talk, eat, and think all over again. She was then moved to a nursing home in Boaz. 5

My mother and I took care of her when she arrived at the nursing home, while the rest of the family sold her belongings as if she were already dead. We visited her almost everyday. I would color her pictures while we sang “I’ll Fly Away” and “Amazing Grace”.  Despite all she had been through and what little mind she had left, she always remembered that God still loved her. 6

My grandmother, Nanny as we called her, decided one day, when the money was running out and patience was wearing thin throughout the family, that she would take Grandma back to Memphis, Tennessee and take care of her at home. My mother and I went to visit her one New Year’s. Her health seemed to worsen with the lack of sunshine and God’s songs. We opened gifts, ate, and afterwards I played “Amazing Grace” on my clarinet and she sang along. I had been in band for a year and I wanted to share it with my Grandma. 7

“Crystal” her shaky, unstable voice spoke,  “when God calls me home play “Amazing Grace” for me.”8

It was February 6, 1999 my Grandma had been in the hospital for a week when we finally got the call that she had passed six days after my thirteenth birthday. I spent the two days that she was being brought to Gadsden from Memphis crying in the corner of my room with my teddy bear Fuzzy. Her viewing was held in a room with wood panels, mixed with tears, terrible green carpet and a strong smell of flowers. My pain ran so deep I shed no tears that night as the rest of my family did. As we left her viewing my mother reminded me about my promise to my Grandma a little more than a year ago. 9

As I walked to the car the day of the funeral, clarinet in hand, I knew it was going to be a day I would remember the rest of my life. The two hour drive to the grave site was filled with memories of her singing me to sleep as a child, going to church one rainy Wednesday night when she couldn’t see and we almost got into an accident, her love for gardening that I could not quite grasp, the picture of a lifetime with my dress that had peaches on it and her smile that could light up the world, and my favorite memory, the day I got saved. She was Holiness denomination and she started speaking in tongues in her apartment while I sat at her dining room table. The memories of her soon brought the tears back to my eyes, as we made our way to the service that was to be held for her. 10

Her funeral was held in the early afternoon. The sun was shining through the large oak trees surrounding the graveyard. A child, barely a teenager, stood beside a newly dug grave.  With tears running down her cheeks, she played “Amazing Grace” for a woman who lived by the songs of God. That girl still lives in my memory and she is still playing “Amazing Grace” for a woman so few knew, but so many loved. 11