Visiting Great Grandma Bass

Since we were already in Texas, we decided to take Sunday and drive 3 hours farther South to visit Eric's Grandma Bass.  She recently had a stroke and her health has been deteriorating.  Eric's family has never been as close to her, and I don't think we have seen her in 10 years.  Although it meant 6 more hours in the car, we decided that it was worth it, and it was. 

It was great to see her, and she was SO excited to see Eric!  She didn't know we were coming.  She remembered me and Alex too (although he wasn't with us).  I think Jesikah was just a baby last time we saw her.  Grandma is in a nursing home in a rehabilitation program after the stroke.  She is doing quite well and her memory is good most of the time, but every now and then she would start talking about something funny. 

She is a sweet lady, and Eric was so kind and gentle with her.  He just sat there and held her hand and talked to her about all the memories he has of her.  He made her so happy and she enjoyed the kids too.  Eric felt really bad when she told him that she thought she'd never see him again.  She was excited to get pictures taken with us.  She kept asking if we had taken the pictures yet.  We also got to see Eric's Uncle Vance who we also haven't seen for a very long time. 

As soon as we got there, Grandma wanted to go outside to the gazebo.  It was about 2pm and 101 degrees outside, but she said she wanted to get warm. We got warm alright :), but while we were out there, we also learned that the gazebo was the smoking spot.  Anytime anyone wanted to smoke, that was the place they came.  We got to smell pretty much constant smoke while we were out there and of course the heat was stifling.  We eventually convinced her to go back inside.  I know she just wanted a place to take us away from her little shared room.


After her recent stroke, I told the kids that we should write a card to her.  They didn't even know who she was and they wanted to know what they should say to someone they didn't know.  This made me feel really bad, so I was so glad we got to see her.  Now they will know who they are writing to, and we hope to keep in better touch.