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.
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!
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