Losing Granny

This seems like a recurring theme in my blogs but unfortunately we have lost another grandparent this past week. My dad's mom Olene Cresswell otherwise known fondly as "Granny Cresswell" passed away last Thursday at the age of 85. She would have been 86 in September. We knew that her time with us was drawing to a close since she had been diagnosed with stage 4 liver cancer with mets to the bone last year. She had been living in a hospice center in Tupelo, MS and was doing well except she had lost alot of weight and in the past few weeks took to sleeping most of the day. My dad's brother Eddy lived close and so when the nurses called and said she wasn't really responsive he was able to rush there in 4 minutes and there when she took her last breath. She was surrounded by the nurses who were holding her hands and speaking softly to her to hold on until her son could get there which she did until a few minutes after Uncle Eddy arrived. The visitation and funeral were this past Sunday in Grenada, MS where she lived most of her adult life. She was a remarkable woman who grew up in Alabama where she was the oldest of the Sanford clan with 2 brothers and 3 sisters. She was a short fiery redhead who was nicknamed the "little general" b/c even if she wasn't in charge she always thought she was!! She met my grandaddy on a greyhound bus from the army base that she worked on back to her hometown of Alabama. She tells the story that he gave his seat up for her and that they were the only two on the bus awake on the long drive and he swept her off her feet she had turned her class ring around at first to give the impression of being married but after getting to know him she made sure it was turned back so he would know she was single! He was in World War II and was stationed in Paris, Germany, etc while they were dating and he wrote her often. We found some of their love letters while going through her house this past weekend and it was like reading the notebook! So sweet and so wonderful to read. They were married 54 years when grandaddy passed from lung cancer in 2003 at 80. She had 3 boys and a daughter who kept life interesting. She was a wonderful story teller and the stories she told on those boys would make you cry with laughter. They were all so funny and into trouble constantly. In her 40's she went back to school and got her nursing degree and worked as a nurse into her 70's. She was known for always dressing in her nurses' whites and never left the house for the hospital without donning her nurses cap and pins. She was a staunch patient advocate and never afraid of standing up to a doctor or administrator. She was a forty plus year breast cancer survivor. She was a wonderful sister, wife, mother, grandmother and greatgrandmother and will be sorely missed. She had an incredible faith in God and spoke about it often praying over everything. I know that she died a believer and she is in Heaven smiling down finally reunited with her loves Jesus and Grandaddy aka "Chick". The service was nice and we had quite a bit of family in town whom we hadn't seen in years. It was nice for them to meet Camden and Walker and see them again. The church that Granny attended in Grenada had a luncheon for us and one of the little old ladies of the church who was in charge of the children's ministry volunteered to watch camden and Walker during the visitation and funeral which was a life saver!

At Christmas 2007, After I graduated from Nursing school Granny was so proud she gave me one of her nursing caps. At Mother's day when we went to visit her at the hospice home. You can see how small she had gotten and how she had lost her signature red hair. She loved Camden and he always made her laugh.
This is almost all of the third generation cousins and second cousins at the visitation those on the right reside in MS, those on the left reside in AL