Grandma

On the night of April 30th, while I was getting off stage at a show in Kentucky, Nancy Blankenship Owen, my sweet grandma, passed away. She was comfortable in hospice care and surrounded by her loved ones, including my mom, for days before her departure.

I told my mom that I've been thinking about Miss Ruby's Tea Room these days. Memories of pretty tea cups and English delicacies piled on tiered platters, fancy tablecloths, and my Grandma's adorable, loving personality presiding over the whole affair. Miss Ruby's was a restaurant that Grandma discovered in our small town. She always had a knack for finding all the charming, cozy places to eat, drink coffee, work, or read. And once she found them, she wanted to share them. She would take me there as a young girl and treat me to a truly enjoyable and unique lunch, where I first developed my love for tea, Devonshire cream, and wassail. Sometimes she would get all the women of the family together and take us out for a girl's afternoon there. I grew up the middle child with two brothers, so those times doing something feminine and special with my Grandma really stood out to me and made a deep impression.

Grandma loved to spoil us. She would take each of us out for a day of fun on our birthdays. We'd go to the local bookstore and coffee shop, where we'd get hot chocolate and satisfy our hunger for literature. She took me bowling and showed me how to play. Once, just because, she presented me with a giant cardboard box full of eleven or twelve beautiful porcelain dolls that she found at a yard sale and bought for me - they were unlike anything I'd ever seen, and I have kept them to this day. She bought the boys toys and video games, and we were treated to KFC popcorn chicken whenever we visited, which we loved. There was always something interesting and fun to do at Grandma's house - she made sure of that.

Early on, she and I bonded over our common interests. Grandma was a Renaissance woman. She was a skilled painter, and created many beautiful pieces that adorned her own house and the houses of her loved ones, including mine. She went back to college after having her children and got her bachelor's degree, then proceeded to teach math at a community college. She could sew just about anything; she once made me an incredible Sacagawea costume for a living history presentation I was doing with our homeschool group, complete with hand-painted details that matched the decor on Sacagawea's garments in a picture from one of our history books. There was a tunic, a skirt, a belt, and moccasins, complete with fringe. Those clothes were so well-made and durable that I wore them for years afterwards to boost my imagination while I played in the woods, and I still have them stored away. She liked interior decorating and dabbled in it, so her house was always charming and unique. And most importantly, she was a writer - a good one. When she married my Pawpaw at the age of seventeen, she became part of a very large family (he had ten siblings) with a truly special matriarch, Alma Cross Owen. This woman was resilient and sweet and funny and wise, and my Grandma grew close to her and was fascinated by her tales. She asked Grandma Alma if she could document her story, and started bringing a tape recorder along when she went to visit. In the years after Grandma Alma passed, she put together a loving biography called In the Backwoods of Nowhere that related Alma's stories in the same dialect and spirit as she used to tell them. She self-edited and self-published the book, and sold it over many different platforms to people from all over, who in turn got to meet her mother-in-law and grow to love her too.

I was in awe of this. I was a young bookworm, and I wanted to be a writer from an early age. Watching my Grandma create her own masterpiece really demonstrated to me that I too could write and publish a book. The idea stuck with me and I ended up landing on a fictional story that I simply had to see through to publication. Grandma was thrilled by this and did not once dismiss my dream, even though at the time it would have seemed foolish - I was probably ten years old or younger when I first formulated my plan. She was completely, enthusiastically supportive, and she tirelessly conversed with me about the writing and publishing process, giving me advice, telling me her own experience, and cheering me on. We could dive deep in to author talk anytime, anywhere. Even when Alzheimer's had started to creep in over the last couple of years, she would instantly become focused, business-minded, and inspired when the topic of writing came up. She was always thinking of ways she could improve her own work, and she showed me how to do the same. I will never forget the example she set and the encouragement she gave me. She was always like that. I could show her anything I'd done - a drawing, a song I wrote, anything - and she would squeal, "Ohhh, that is so good! You're going to be famous!" I could always count on her for that. What a precious person to have in one's life.

I wanted to paint, draw, sew, and decorate like her, too. We brainstormed together. Once when I was probably a pre-teen, she let me help her rearrange and redecorate her office - that was a thrill for me, because I was on a major interior design kick and that's a hard thing to experiment with sometimes. But with her collection of knickknacks, antiques, and art, I had a playground for trying new things, and she actually cared about what I thought would look nice (even though I was not very good at it). I remember having such a fun time that day. She didn't have to indulge my curiosity like that, and it was probably bit inconvenient for her. But she did so with warmth and sincerity. Another time, she showed me how to use her vintage treadle sewing machine, took me out to pick a fabric, and helped me create a throw pillow with this historical piece of machinery. The pillow is displayed on my bed at this very moment.

She was funny. She aways had a self-deprecating joke, an anecdote, or simply a random remark that she would utter and then giggle at herself for saying. There was always a lot of smiling when she was around.

She and my Pawpaw were a wonderful couple. They were very different people, but they'd been together for a lifetime and they just made sense. They complemented each other. What one lacked, the other had. They loved each other. Grandma would talk, with tears in her eyes, about how good he was to her. They took long drives through the country together on Sundays, and that's something that has stuck with me as really beautiful and sweet.

Grandma taught me a lot. She showed me how to enjoy life - to savor good food and drink, seek out beautiful and interesting things, cherish the stories of my elders, work hard to follow my dreams, embrace the creative process, and seek out happiness and wellbeing. She displayed unconditional love to her grandchildren and made us feel appreciated and full of potential. I sure am going to miss her hugs and her giggle. A beautiful soul. Thank you, Grandma. I know you're resting well, and I love you forever.