Mok Socks, etc.

It was drizzling outside as Elvis sang "How Great Thou Art" in the chapel of Memorial Gardens. Her grandsons were pall bearers. Her granddaughters wore Mok Socks (she loved crazy socks) and put a homemade sweatshirt in the coffin with the names of her 7 grandbabies on it. The Beloved One (the granddaughter whom she raised) spoke some words over us and said about her, "What a goofball!" The preacher told the story of when she smelled the flowers at Kroger and flirted with a handsome man then saw the pollen all over her nose when she looked in the bathroom mirror once she got home. He held up her well-worn Bible and said she was Ready. He quoted Psalm 46:5: God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early. (KJV, The Real Bible)

She is buried in Memphis, Tennessee, near a little boy appropriately named Presley and an old woman named Fannie Fullilove, next to her baby sister Peggy Ruth, who died at six months old in January, 1943. Nana and Papaw are on the other side of Peggy Ruth. She didn't have any memories of Peggy Ruth, and Nana never talked about her.

Back at her house, the grandchildren devoured the Dangerous Room, the extra bedroom where she hoarded. She would never allow them in there. They sorted her treasures. There was an unopened 3-pack of Mok Socks. Abby took the metronome; Emma claimed the Bedazzler; Phillip collected a cigar box for his collections and a Looney Tunes pajama shirt. They found for me a necklace for my readers and a cross that their daddy made in VBS. They each had a personally labeled file full of cards they had sent to her and pictures they had colored. The Beloved One's was fatter than the others.

We ate a store-bought chocolate pie, but it wasn't very good.

She had been confused. For the past year of her life, she repeatedly whispered, "Forever and ever. Forever and ever." She didn't know that her mama died 11 months before her. The preacher said, "Imagine the look on her face when she got to Heaven and Nana welcomed her. She probably said, 'When did you get here?!?!'" 

Whenever the grandkids left her house, she stood outside and waved over her shoulder and behind her back and under her legs. So, we waved silly waves to her as we left the graveyard.

We love you Mok. Forever and ever.