My Gma Sampson: One of a Kind
Written in 2011 after my Gma Sampson passed away. I read this at her funeral. She passed away on January 10th, 2011.
GRANDMA SAMPSON....
When I was 15, I got up in
front of everyone at Grandma and Grandpa’s 50th Wedding Anniversary and
nervously read a story I wrote, making sure to point out all of the
things I loved about Grandma and Grandpa—eating apples and popcorn,
playing basketball and baseball with me, Grandpa’s close attention to
mowing the yard very low, and how he would drink coffee and Diet Pepsi
about everyday. I also made sure to make fun of Grandma’s cooking
skills and how Grandma and Grandpa used to yell at each other. Shawn
and I never knew cuss words existed till them! I took extra care to not
mention her wigs though—as it was just a few years before that I learned
that Grandma even wore one! I even went to school and told all my
friends, “Guess what??? My Grandma wears a wig!”
We all
will hold so many memories like these so very dear of Grandma and
Grandpa and as time passes we will likely forget some, but the good
thing that will help out our fuzzy, forgetful Sampson minds is Grandma
for sure is a character you cannot just forget overnight. An uncensored
trailblazer of sorts as Amanda said, and as Matt aptly labeled her the
matriarch of our family, truly an individual—as just a few of our family
and friends have described her. There are so many titles you could
ascribe to Grandma. When talking about Grandma to a friend of mine this
past week from high school, Tom Krieg, he even described his mom,
Carol, and Grandma, who were very good friends, as “country chic~”.
Grandma
and Grandpa lived a legacy to follow, and now leave us all with big
shoes to fill, and not solely because she’s the sort of lady that
writers of books and movies and television shows only dream of creating
to insert into the faux world of drama. The beauty of Grandma is she
lived her life so full, so resounding with energy and pomp and maybe
some circumstance that such a life cannot be made up. There are no
legends about Grandma.
All the stories are true.
Dedicating
the later part of their lives to serving on the campus of Ozark
Christian College, I couldn’t go anywhere in college without hearing
another “Mom Sampson” episode from people who knew Grandma and Grandpa.
Some of my favorites include numerous stories from girls in the dorms
who would get in trouble and Grandma would always come to their rooms to
punish them. The girls who knew better would start a story about
something from their day, distracting Grandma, causing her to forget why
she came down to their room in the first place. Alan Brintall shared
that the boys in the dorms were not taking drills seriously, so one
night Grandma put some rags in a bucket, set them on fire, and walked up
and down the hallway letting the smoke fill the dorm. She then pulled
the alarm and hid. The boys made it out in record time! It’s stories
like these that made for a lot of fun memories for OCC students through
the years. Professor David Fish described Grandma and Grandpa as
“people who played a really important part in the story of Ozark.”
Numerous former students have been sending note after note about
memories of Grandma and Grandpa, and not surprisingly, most of them talk
about how fun they were, what wonderful mentors they were, but also
that they were so giving in love and grace, especially for the “wild”
students. Grandma and Grandpa changed, mentored, and did God’s work in
the saving of many souls.
Aside from college, there are
stories we will always remember as family members, and for sake of
brevity, I decided to narrow things down to a “You might be related to
Janice Sampson” list.
You might be related to Janice Sampson if….
1.
You love or have ever tried something weird and healthy or homeopathic.
Grandma used to make “health” cookies, which were I believe void of
sugar and often burned in the oven… She was also an accomplished carrot
juice maker. I remember more than once her concocting some “Frog
juice” which was green. In her later years she fell into the “essential
oils” marketing ploy and had all sorts of scents in tiny bottles
sitting around her house that you could sniff according to your
ailment. Of course, her cooking was not the best and Aunt Tammy notes
that one year she tried to cook a cobbler for visitors Bob Stacy and one
of his groups, only to have left the saran wrap on. Everyone had a
hearty taste of warm, plastic peach cobbler—fresh out of the oven--
before Grandma confessed.
1.5 You can cut a rug. (Grandma sure could dance!!!)
2. Eating ice cream is a hobby and flagging down the Schwann man is a sport. Need I say more?
3.
You’ve gobbled up a Hershey’s bar without a thought of its calories.
Some of Grandma’s last words of her life were spoken on Christmas day of
this year, just before her final sleep, “Hershey’s chocolate is the
best chocolate in the world.”
4. You’ve spoken your mind with no
reserves or regrets. Who doesn’t have a story of Grandma speaking her
mind and often getting flack for it? She really could make people so
mad! One of my favorites is a few years ago she told someone that,
“Well, I’m old, and I don’t care anymore. I’m just going to say what
ever I want to from here on out.” We know she’d already been doing that
for years… J
5. You’re a writer or a reader. Grandma wrote for
years for the Buchanan County Farmer. She wrote the DeKalb News and
sometimes the church news. She was witty, yet always seemed to included
everyone and always had a kind word to say. Grandma was always reading
too… biographies of famous people, particularly about the Kennedy’s,
were her favorite.
6. You’re a musician. Grandma sang, danced,
and played piano. She acted in local plays. She sang to be funny.
Members of the Rushville Christian Church have said many times they’ll
never forget the time she had “Feliz Navidad” playing as she danced in
the aisles with bells ringing on her, as she told everyone “Merry
Christmas.” She sang to put her grandchildren to sleep, and one of her
favorite songs was “Froggy went a courtin’ he did ride, mm hmm, mm
hmm”. A comical song, it was funny to hear Grandma sing it, as she made
sure to emphasize the “mm Hmm” part in full musical fashion.
7.
You’re an athlete. When I was around junior high age I recall her
playing a baseball game with us on a field dad and I mowed and put up a
backstop. She creamed the ball and was just as good in the field, even
at almost 70 years old! Not being able to get around the past few years
really discouraged her, but thank goodness she has no need for a walker
or wheelchair anymore.
8. You’ve traveled the country. Grandma
loved seeing the beauties of our great country and saw a lot of it
throughout the years. She even had a senior membership to visit the
National Parks in the U.S. One year when we were going to Oregon and
California. Grandma provided hours of entertainment as she slept and a
fly kept trying to go in her mouth.
9. You love your family to
pieces. Even up to the last day she could talk, Grandma was bringing up
her uncles and grandparents—going to visit them and her uncles calling
her “Niecey”. When I was visiting her this fall she said, “I miss being
called ‘Niecey’ Oh why doesn’t anyone call me ‘Niecey’ anymore?”.
Whether or not Grandma really knew what she was saying, it was clear—she
missed those in her life she had looked up to in years gone by. A few
years ago, while still in the nursing home, she even said that she had
or was going to start a book titled “The Men of My Life”—a book that was
to talk about the impact of her uncles, her father, her grandfathers,
and her husband.
She loved her family as well. Grandma
and Grandpa were never too busy for any family member or friends to come
over, and Shawn and I were lucky enough to live next door. We wanted
to visit everyday, but mom and dad made sure we minded our time. Grandma
made sure to come to Shawn and I’s “Red Bargain Barn” where we sold
Grandma all sorts of knick-knacks and hedge balls when they were in
season. More recently, I loved bringing my phone to the nursing home to
show Grandma the latest photos our family posted on facebook. Even
though she didn’t understand “how did you get those pictures on that
thing?” she always wanted to see more pictures and wanted more of the
“babies” and “little ones” to stop in to see her. And she sure knew it
if dad missed a day of seeing her, or if someone else hadn’t been to
visit her in a while.
10. You’ve climbed a water tower in a
dress, or done something similarly daring, scary, or completely
unexpected. Grandma told stories of daring things she and her sister,
Barbara, and friends did when they were younger. When we were in high
school, we remember Grandma best for her school spirit. She got in
trouble multiple times for clanging her cowbell at our basketball
games. Just a few years ago, she even took a spin on the Harley with
Mark on a whim and around the same year she dressed up like a bear and
went trick-or-treating to St. Jo and visited Rex and other family
members. Two years ago at our family Christmas, we all decided to take
the bows and ribbons from the gifts and wrap them around our heads as if
we were the presents, and for no reason at all. That may have been the
same year that Grandma got to keep the really big bear as her gift. If
you’ve seen the pictures, you know what I’m talking about!
11.
And the most important thing…. You’ve dedicated your life to serving
and learning to grow closer to Christ Jesus. Grandma wasn’t just a
Christian by name. She studied the Bible. She passed her love for
Christ on to so many students at OCC and also to her family. And of
course, she’d call out someone if she thought they weren’t right on
about something, including the preacher! Too me, my favorite story was
the one about my parents. Grandma prayed long and hard for my dad to
find the right girl and mom was the answer to that prayer.
One
of my favorite books, Fahrenheit 451 has a touching part in it where
one of the main characters describes how he felt about the death of his
Grandfather’s, who was a sculptor. The author, Ray Bradbury, writes, “
And
when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn't crying for him at all, but
for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he
would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and
pigeons in the back yard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us
jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the
actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them just the way he
did. He was individual. He was an important man.... He shaped the world.
He did
things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on." I wrote in the margin, "must remember to leave the world bankrupt as well when I go."
"Everyone
must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child
or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes
made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your
soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree
or that flower you planted, you're there. It doesn't matter what you
do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before
you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands
away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real
gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well
not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime."
Today
our world is now bankrupt of Grandma Sampson’s ten million fine
actions, ten million crazy actions, ten million stories that we could
tell and never run dry with—our world is void of a true individual, and
yet so much of what she touched, including us, is still here—changed
forever by this wonderful woman. A woman who now leaves her legacy
asking us, what will you touch? What will you do with your faith? What
will you do with YOUR story?
Looking back on knowing my
Grandma for 30 years, with so many bittersweet times now a part of the
past, looking back-- my heart, and I’m guessing your heart, is full.
Full of so many memories of love, and fun, and family, and the
liveliness and innocence of childhood that seems to be buried deep
within all of us, including Grandma even to her last days—we mourn their
passing and we long for the day when our sadness of living will turn to
the joy of everlasting life.
You see, we’re no longer
little kids or middle age adults riding carefree in the back of Grandma
and Grandpa’s Monte Carlo—windows down and t-tops out—though, just for a
moment, we’d give anything for another Sunday drive down Hwy 116 or
DeKalb highway. We’re adults who feel the sharp knife of this all too
short life. No matter what age you pass on to be with your maker, life
is all too short.
You see, if you went to visit Grandma
over the past few years you know that she always talked about her two
rooms in her “house” (which was the nursing home), one of which she said
she could never find. Grandma really did have two rooms, and she’s
finally in the one she kept looking for. Yet in our sadness, and in the
brevity of this moment, our thoughts need to turn homeward… There—yes
there, I have a feeling “Grandma Joplin” as Shawn named her when he was a
little boy, has been taken to the steps of her childhood homes, and
then has been walking up the dorms of heaven, being distracted by
students, all while she has a few tricks and pranks up her sleeve.
She’s been dancing her “happy dance” in the aisles of the heavenly
seats, bells on her neck as “Feliz Navidad” plays in the background.
Earlier she was in the stands of a ballgame ringing a cowbell, and after
that she went to the ball fields to jump in on a game of baseball. On
her way back to her heavenly estate, she stops at some youngsters’ Red
Bargain Barn, and purchased a bag full of 5-cent hedge balls to put
around her heavenly home to keep the crickets out. She arrives home and
grandpa is in a golden la-z-boy cutting an apple with his knife, Diet
Pepsi on the table by his chair. George and Mary, Annabelle and
Everett, DoraDean and Otho, Grandma’s parents, grandparents, and all of
her uncles, Boots and Shine, Jess and Glen, and Clare have already
stopped by and said their hellos to their friend, child, granddaughter,
and “Niecey”. We know Grandma is thrilled that she can now talk to Dora
Dean on the phone any time of the day, and not just late at night, as
Grandma used to think calling on the phone was cheaper the later it
was. Tonight she’ll sing little Cash to sleep with “Froggie went a
courtin’”, and if there is any hope of ice cream in heaven, you know for
sure the Schwann man has already been hit up. For you see, Grandma has
stocked the freezer with all of her and Grandpa’s favorites—Silvermint
bars, black cherry frozen yogurt, fudge sticks, and ice cream
sandwiches. But she also has bought a couple tub of vanilla ice cream,
some orange push-ups and drumsticks—the kind with the inch of rich fudge
in the bottom of the cone. But those, well, those aren’t for Grandma,
or Grandpa, or her friends...
You see, those are for us.
We too will be going home soon…
Photos:
1. When Gma was younger.
2. Me when Gma graduated from OCC.
3.We had a blast going to San Fran to see my cousin Ben marry Shannan.
I planned out some sight-seeing at the Golden Gate, Lombard Street, and
more. Gma said I drove like I had lived in San Fran my whole life. The last day of the trip I went to go get some chocolate and made
Gma stay in the car. Funny. She didn't. (I know this shocks none of
you). She got out and tried to find me and THEN called home collect from
a pay phone to my dad and my aunt so they could try to find me. Nothing
like returning to your car only to find your Gma is gone! She came
back, but boy was I mad!
