Grandma's Hands

 I wasn't there.

I've just heard about it.

If my grandma, Iva Pauline Mercer Nesmith had a favorite grandchild, it wasn't me.  No doubt she loved me.  

    *When I married Ray Parker and the reception was going to be in my grandparents' home, she planted yellow dahlias in the yard that could be seen from the dining room windows.

    *When I had surgery in 1971 just a few weeks before her death, she spent the afternoon with me at Baptist Hospital.

    *She was one of the reasons I thought I should be a minister's wife.  She had the gift of helps and hospitality that I felt I also had.

However, I never could work quite fast enough for her.  My little sister, Cindy was that grandchild.

And so it was when grandma lay near death, it was Cindy, who sat by her bed and talked to her about her hands - the hands that had cared for the sick fed the hungry, and welcomed so many who needed encouragement into her home.

It was just before 9 AM on Thursday, May 20, 1971.  My mother and her sisters stood by the bedside, my granddaddy kissed her - and Grandma went from here to there (as Granddaddy who believed so much in Heaven) used to say.

Almost my first question as I heard the news about her passing was pretty selfish.  

"Did she know I'm pregnant? "

Yes, and she was delighted.

But those hands would never hold my baby.

I got something better.  On the day that would have been grandma Nesmith's 70th birthday, my mother became a grandma! 

Rebecca Lynn Parker was born at 4:53 on Friday, November 26. 

Someone far greater than any of us had a HAND in that!