Grandmother

"You know what I want?" Grandmother said, grinning at me over the kitchen counter. "An ice cream cone." She whispered it like she wasn't supposed to say it, but she was going to anyway. "Do you want one?"

"Oh I never turn down ice cream!" I giggled. It was the middle of the day and I try to eat a fairly wholesome diet when I'm not on the road, but ice cream with my grandmother was not something I would ever pass up.

We began hunting for the waffle cones. Grandmother LOVED her waffle cones and it was a big fiasco when we thought she had run out of them, especially now that we had our hopes set on having ourselves a couple of them. Even though all of her kitchen was incredibly well-organized, the cones evaded us for just long enough to make us anxious, before we finally found them hiding behind some other pantry items and victoriously began assembling our impromptu desserts.

"This is what Sammy would always do at night," she said, after she had painstakingly packed her chocolate and vanilla Breyer's ice cream into the cone. "He'd say, 'I feel like an ice cream cone, do you want one?' And then he'd go fix me one and he'd wrap the napkin around it like this." She carefully twirled the napkin around the base of the cone and showed me the result. We both tried not to cry. We missed Granddaddy.

We stood in the kitchen and ate our ice cream, while Sadie, Grandmother and Granddaddy's beloved toy schnauzer, fussed at us constantly because she wanted some too. Grandmother gave in and put a little vanilla ice cream on a paper plate for her. Sadie was, and is, too cute to resist.

That's one of my favorite memories of Kaye Matthews Snyder, my grandmother. It was during a very hard year - this year, in fact - in which she (and the whole family) dealt with the earth-shattering 2021 losses of, first, her daughter Beth, and then Granddaddy, as well as her relentless health issues which were only getting worse. Despite all of that - despite going through hell itself - she still had the spunk and the sense of humor and the energy to stand in the kitchen, on her lymphedema-ridden feet, and eat ice cream with her granddaughter.

I stayed with her quite often during that time, especially early in the year when she was battling severe cellulitis and also adjusting to living alone for possibly the first time in her life. I would not trade one minute of that time together for all the world. I got to know her better than ever before. Even when it was hard and scary and sad, I was still having a sleepover at Grandmother's house and that was special. She would always make sure I got some coffee in the morning, even if I had to leave early for work or farm duties. We shared a love for coffee, and her Keurig was our best friend. For Christmas last year, I gave her a coffee mug with a painting of a rabbit on it because she loved bunnies more than anything else. She always threatened to buy a pet rabbit, even though there was no earthly way it could have coexisted with the dog. It's funny, I have found myself drawn to wild rabbits, and have even found myself rescuing a couple of orphaned bunnies that I came across, and I think it's something that she passed down to me, along with her sweet tooth and her love for all things Texas.

She was hilarious and she knew it. She always had something clever to say even in moments that were rather difficult. She joked with the nurses about her appearance when we were wheeling her in for doctor's appointments, making fun of the fact that she quite literally didn't have the strength to get dolled up for "going out." Even in her final days she was joking; when I commented that her phone was ringing a lot and she must be popular, she said casually, "Yeah, I think I must be the president of something." About ten years ago, a small earthquake came through our town, and Grandmother recounted the story energetically to us after the fact. "I was in my office and I looked down at my keyboard it and it was just jumping up and down - I looked up and I yelled 'Sammy!!! WHY ARE WE MOVING?" And I will never think of the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? without recalling her choking with laughter while trying to quote the line, "We thought you was a toad!" She kept trying to say it and kept bursting out laughing before she could get to the end. It was one of her favorite movies.

Some of my earliest memories of her involve going into her gift shop, Emaline Brooke, which was a beautiful and beloved place. It always smelled so nice in there - like scented candles and a million other home goods - and she always looked so pretty working behind the counter with her hair done perfectly, her nails polished, her lipstick on. She would smile from ear to ear when we came in and make a big fuss about her grandkids being there - then she would brag on us to all the customers. I liked watching her interact with the people who came in. She had many regulars and had a good way with them, asking them about their families and handling the business with class. One of my very first gigs was at her shop's Christmas open house; my brother and I performed in the shop and it helped get the word out to the community about us. One year when we were playing a Texas swing tune, she and Granddaddy started swing dancing on the spot in front of everybody, much to my amazement. They were good at it too, even though he was twice her height! (She was a tiny woman - we grandkids all got taller than her quite early in our teenage years and she would always scold us for outgrowing her when we passed her by.) She had so many well-honed skills from running the gift shop, not the least of which was beautiful gift wrapping. Last Christmas, she taught me how to do it, and supervised each present I wrapped for her until I got it right.

When I came in the shop, she would watch me look at the displays and would make note of what I liked. She had this cute little Christmas decoration that was a mouse in a Santa suit playing a piano. The mouse had a motion sensor so that when you walked by, it would turn and greet you, and then play whatever song you picked from his stack of sheet music and placed in front of him. She noticed that I was fascinated with it, and when I opened my Christmas presents that year, there he was. I still have it and am going to get it out for the holidays like I do most every year.

I also learned from her how to make sweet pickles - she found out I was looking to learn how to preserve food and very gladly volunteered to teach me. She used to do tons of canning whenever the produce was in for the year from the family garden, and she was an expert at it. So during 2020 when I was focusing all my attention on gardening and farming, she wrote out the recipe and walked me through the whole, week-long process, talking me through it patiently and answering all my questions. I was so tickled that she took me under her wing and saw me through to a successfully canned batch. We always hoped to do more of that but we never got the chance.

It is so strange and unreal that she's gone now. Her kitchen window faces our house and I keep thinking I see her looking out at me, like she always used to do. She was a fighter and held on way longer than most people in her health condition would have. I'm grateful that she did, because I got to spend more time with her, but I'm glad that she's finally free of all the struggle.

Ever since we were little, whenever we left the house she would say, "See you later, alligator!" and we'd grin and answer, "After while, crocodile!" This goodbye is a lot harder but I think she would still say it. See you later, Grandmother. I love you and miss you.