A Great-Grandma… A Guiding Light

MawMaw, you were inevitably my guiding light in my heart, no matter how difficult or hopeless times seemed to be. You still are. And you always will be. I’m going to try to write a tribute to the woman who partially raised me, defined the true meaning of being a good person, and taught me how to have a warm and forgiving heart - because that’s exactly what she had. Today, she would’ve been 95 years old. So I’m taking a moment to celebrate the remarkable woman that MaryLee Barker Welborn was.?

I’m sure every person has met a sweet old lady with a heart of gold. The granny that carries around candy in her purse and loves any and all children because she sees purity and innocence in them, and believes that children carry all the light and goodness of the universe within them - the kind of granny that radiates a warm aura of compassion and love. My great-grandma was this sweet lady that everyone knows, or at least has seen in a grocery store or at a church, but she was so much more than just a sweet old lady.?

She had an unmistakable grit about her. I’ll never forget the time she got mad at me because I *begged* her all day for six hours straight to try some of her snuff. Come on, yall… we all wanted to know what it tasted like at that age. Finally, after all my annoying pleading, she got her scotch snuff from the top of the fridge and said “Here!” and she put a little bit in my mouth. I learned my lesson the hard way that day and from that day forward, I was and still am tobacco-free!?

My great-grandma said exactly what was on her mind. She was the sweetest woman ever, but if she had something to say, she’d say it. I loved that about her and I think that’s one of the reasons I found my courage to write. She even made up a few words that I added to my personal dictionary. My favorites were always, “damndable” and “drotted.” She always used to say “this damndable old phone” or, “oh, this drotted old T.V.” whenever she would turn the T.V. box that controlled the antenna on the top of the house. It’s funny how I still vividly remember the sound of the box when she turned it… “errrr”... then again, its something you can’t really forget.?

She loved cooking and insisted on always making people eat when they came to her house. She spent most of her time in the kitchen, making mashed potatoes, green beans, pintos, and homemade blueberry pies from her own blueberry patch - she was the queen of comfort food. I’ll never forget watching Dennis the Menace with her in the afternoon, Three’s Company in the evening, and Maude at night before we went to bed. Man, she loved the news, particularly Fox 8 news. If you wanted to know anything about the weather forecast for the week, she was the one to call. Although, anyone who knew her also knew that her idea of a cold day was 65 degrees. You’d really have to know her in order to see her whole beauty as a person. I was grateful to have 13 amazing years with her as my great-grandma and my best friend.?

My great-grandma carried the light of the world all right there inside her heart. She had a huge heart. She was the only person I knew who could completely forgive and forget every bad thing someone ever did to her and still treat that person with the utmost respect and continue to show love for them - she was the definition of unconditional love, and she proved that unconditional love still exists in a world where it is becoming scarcely seen. She was a blanket of warmth when the world and everyone in it seemed cold. I’ve never seen someone with so much compassion and so much good in their heart as she had. I try to live up to her legacy… but it’s not easy. She was the strongest woman I ever knew. She lived through the death of her own child - I’m not a parent, but I can’t even begin to imagine losing someone that is literally a part of you. She never showed her grief in front of me. Instead, she transformed her pain from losing one of her children into love for me.?

She lived on a little house up on a hill. The driveway was at the bottom of the hill near the road. Every time after my dad would pick me up from spending the night with her, she would stand on the porch or in the door and wave goodbye and watch us pull out of the driveway to make sure we pulled out onto the road safely. After the last night that I ever spent with her, she stood at the front door and waved and smiled as she watched me and my dad pulling out of the driveway. I took in that moment and painted a picture in my mind of her peaceful smile and golden light that surrounded her as my dad was backing out of her driveway. Something was telling me, “you need to remember this…” “it might be the last one…” Something was pulling me back as we drove away. I didn’t want to leave her. But I smiled when I and my dad got a few miles up the road because I thought of her standing in the doorway with that aura surrounding her.?

A couple of days later I was on a field trip to the Greensboro Science Center. That whole day, I thought so much about her, and I kept imagining what my life would be like if she wasn’t there. When I returned to school to be picked up, I felt like something out of the ordinary was about to happen. Sure enough, it did. My mom frantically got out of her car and ran toward me and said “we have to go” instead of waiting in the carline to get me. I immediately said, “what’s wrong with MawMaw.”?

My worst nightmare was coming true and I felt it happening all day long. We drove to her house and there was an ambulance at the top of the hill and my dad was waiting in the car at the bottom of the hill to take me home. My mind became numb because I had no idea what had happened or what would happen. I started to get in the car and I saw her being carried out of her little house on a stretcher. Despite suffering a hemorrhagic stroke and being extremely disoriented after laying on her floor for who knows how long, I saw her raise her hand up from the stretcher. She knew I was down there at the bottom of that hill. To this day, I still believe that it was her way of saying our last goodbye… and her final way of saying that she was going to her home… the heaven that she talked about so much. Her hand remained raised up to the sky. It was the last time I ever saw my great-grandma. My best friend. The most amazing person I’ll ever know. And the most amazing woman the world will ever know.?

It hit me like a pile of bricks the first time I walked into her house after she passed. It punched me in the chest that she wasn’t there. It was the first time I had ever been in her house without her being there. I remember sitting in her chair - the chair she always used to hold me in while she sang to me and rocked me to sleep. The chair still had her hairspray residue at the top of it. I sat there and thought about how she would never sit there again and how I would never hear her voice. I walked into her bedroom and I curled up in her bed. I buried my head in the sheets and I started crying. I felt myself becoming a shell, and then suddenly all the memories came pouring in and flooded my emotions. Although it hurt at that moment, I knew that her time on earth was over, and I know that she left an unforgettable impact on my life. Even though she wasn’t there physically, I felt and still feel her smiling and wrapping her arms around me when I cry.?

I feel her presence when I listen to “Smile” by Nat King Cole. “Smile though your heart is aching, Smile even though it's breaking, When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by, If you smile through your fear and sorrow, Smile and maybe tomorrow, You'll see the sun come shining through for you.” She loved Frank Sinatra and every time I listen to him, I always think of her and I smile. The song that defines her life is “My Way” by Frank - the lyrics that stand out in the song more than anything are “I've lived a life that's full, I traveled each and every highway, And more, much more than this, I did it my way.” She did life her way. And she made my life beautiful. If you’ve made it this far into reading this - thank you. Thank you for celebrating the life of the most amazing and courageous and remarkable person with me today.?

She lives on in sunsets, Frank Sinatra songs, our laughs, our smiles, and has her arms around her family whenever we cry. She lives on in all of our hearts and memories. She lives on through her son and daughter-in-law - Randall and Shelia Welborn, her two amazing brothers, Rex Barker and Kenneth Barker, and her best friend, Louise Sale. She lives on through my Mom and Dad’s stories of her, and I know she lives on through my little sister every time I see her smile. She’ll live forever in me, in all of you, and through our stories and our memories of her.?

My Way...