Jackie Adams

It thunders outside my window. The thunder reminds me we cannot have storms without rain. We cannot have rainbows without sunlight. Somehow it all flows together. Last year this day we lost my grandmother, Jackie Adams to a sudden heart attack. She went peacefully as we all knew in our hearts was the best way for her to go. I pay tribute to her as she was a special lady. Sometimes Jackie came across as a bit heartless and so far inside of herself that no one truly understood her. She never showed emotion. She was one of the toughest women I have ever met in my life. Yet... she loved my dad and I with all she had in her heart. She would have killed anyone for us. Seriously. Cross her bear cubs... and she might slug you... through the jugular vein. I was thinking last night ... not about her as my grandmother because I know how special she was in our lives, but her as a woman. What a tribute... Granny Jac was a fighter. She grew up in the time of the Great Depression and she enjoyed telling us stories about her time on the farm in Dunn, Texas. She worked when many women didn't work and she still managed to have a home life as well. Jackie is a women that teaches us to go for what you want... She didn't let anyone cross her. She remembered it to her death. Now... I do not wish for us all to hold grudges as she did, but to stand up for ourselves as women. She wasn't scared to tell you what she thought... and often it was brutal. She knew how she wanted things... she wanted her yard to be the best on the block. She wanted her house to be the cleanest in Texas. She was a very strong woman who truly lived. She never rested... always on the go shopping, out with friends, playing bridge, mowing... I never saw her sit! She enjoyed people and she enjoyed her life. Upon her death I found many binders in her closet stuffed with Bible lessons. She knew that Bible through and through. Granny Jac had a lot of anger in her heart from heartaches along the way. She must have tried to see through that bitterness somehow... She will forever teach me about true love. I know she truly loved us so much as she always told me and she also never forgot to remind me how much she loved her only child, my dad. She didn't show it in her eyes and I never saw a tear fall of happiness or sadness, but she showed it in her actions of her tight hugs and special words. Jackie Adams is a legendary woman of the 1920s that can teach us about being women in this new millenium by being a strong, courageous and respectable model.