So my daughter comes to me tonight after we eat dinner and she takes a bath and says with all seriousness that she needs to ask me a question. Her question? "How can you miss someone so much and not even remember knowing them?"  So I pulled her over to me and gave her a hug and asked who she was missing. Turns out she is missing my Mommaw Adkins.....her great grandma..So I gave her another hug and cuddled her close and told her it was because she knew her, so she was a part of my daughter's memories...she just doesn't remember knowing her.....I know it sounds a little weird, but...

Shellie was 4 when my mommaw died at the age of 91, in her sleep. We lived in town then, but the house was being packed up in preparation for our move to our new house soon..We actually were only days away from closing on the property when my mom called about 1030 that Saturday night and told me mommaw was gone....It hit me like a knife in my heart, because as much as I loved my other mommaw, who had died in 1984, I was around mom's mom a lot more growing up, it seemed like...maybe it was just because of the 22 years between their deaths. And we were getting set to move within 5 minutes of her home.

I remember so much growing up around them....I remember--can still smell the smells of her cooking, how she knew what I liked to eat and made sure she kept it on hand. Even when us grandkids got to the stage of teenagers and might have been a little more difficult, she was always still Mommaw...always treated us the same, always loved us. I remember staying the night at her home growing up. Playing endless games of Aggravation--the board game, that is!!! I remember how loud the tv always was b/c Poppaw was hard of hearing.....and how hot that trailer was in the summer, although in winter it sure felt good. I remember good times with my cousins, who lived all around there...how we'd tramp the hills and ride bikes up and down the holler and run in and out of the doors of all the houses......

Then there were all the family reunions, still going on today, although not as strong as they once were. The last picture I remember being taken of Mommaw, in my collection anyway, is one of 4 generations of Adkins women.....Mommaw Rhoda, Mom, me, and my daughter.

I told Shellie to treasure her grandparents. To ask me and her dad and our folks about the family history. I wish so badly I had picked my granny's brain in the years prior to her death. So much oral history gone. This is why I continue to go to the reunions year after year. To hear the stories, not only of what has gone on in the months or years since seeing various relatives, but the stories of them growing up, and sometimes of us kids growing up...

Shellie says she feels her granny is her guardian angel. If she believes it, who am I to say any different?

I do know one thing---she picked a great lady to be her angel---I knew as soon as I had heard of her passing, that Jesus had welcomed another angel to His side.