My maternal grandmother never met a man she didn't dislike. She was contrary to the point of surliness and it
was even more interesting because all that hate and discontent was packaged inside a tiny red-headed dynamo standing well under five feet. When grandma was in her mid-eighties, she finally admitted she shouldn't
be driving anymore. Riding in a car with my grandmother at the wheel was scarier than anything I faced as a police officer. Once, while a passenger in her car, my mother, sister, brother and I were treated to her
swerving up onto the curb and back on the road just in time to avoid colliding with a lamp post. I've been on roller coasters that weren't as exciting as riding with my grandmother.
Grandma hung on to her
independence as long as she could, but eventually she'd outlived most of her friends and knew few people in her neighborhood. When she could no longer drive, she made the choice to move to Jacksonville, where she bought
a small house. She lived there until her health deteriorated and we moved her into a nursing home.
Grandma liked for a room to be warm – oh, say around 95 degrees – year round. So the first thing she did at the
nursing home was get into a running gun battle with her room mate over the room's temperature. Grandma'd turn it up and the other woman would turn it down. Finally, after several months of their dueling – with neither
woman giving in – the staff just moved the other lady out and left Grandma alone in the room.
She lived to be 93 and never mellowed. A month or so before she died, I went to the nursing home to visit her and one
of the young women who worked there stopped me and said hello.
"You're Miss Bessie's granddaughter, aren't you?" she asked.
I admitted that I was.
"Well, this morning I went in to wake her up
and I said, 'Good morning, Miss Bessie, nice day isn't it?' And do you know what she said?"
I shook my head.
"She told me to go straight to hell."
I'd like to tell you that my grandmother's
response was due to her age, but that wouldn't be true. That was the way my grandmother was all her life. And my son – who thinks he knows a mean mom when he sees one – has no idea what mean really is.
What he really needs is a good dose of Miss Bessie.
