Ora Louise Brown Fox (1921-2009)

My 88 year old grandma went to be with the Lord on Saturday. She also was reunited with the 2 husbands she had outlived and I'm sure they were probably fighting over her in Heaven! What a woman she was. She didn't stand very tall in stature, maybe 5 feet tall and as she got older, she got shorter. I was lying in bed last night finally alone and able to take it all in and I just started to think of all the things I remember about her.

She was my fancy Grandma. She worked when we were younger and was always dressed in a tight pencil skirt and high heels. We'd visit her downtown and she'd take us to Green's Hot Dogs. Green was her absolutely favorite color. I remember going to her retirement party where she received a pair of diamond earrings. I thought it was funny the year that she was 63 and my dad was 36! She always had her kitchen stocked with soda and lemon zinger cookies when we'd come to visit. And ohhh could she cook, and although we have all her recipe cards I remember watching her and she never used a recipe, she could make it all from memory.

Grandma Fox bought us our Easter dresses every year, sometimes matching, and other times just coordinating, but they were always beautiful. When we'd come to visit she'd always give us money when we left, somehow my brother always got double what the girls got - not sure about that, but we laugh about it now. Grandma never cried when we left, but Dad said she wasn't the type to cry in front of us, she'd go inside and do that.

She'd make this noise with her tongue and her teeth that was her signature noise. Her hair was always tightly permed, and boy did she love her Boston Terriers. I can't recall a time that she ever raised her voice at us. Some of our best memories were made in Myrtle Beach where we'd vacation most summers at her beach house. She loved vanilla ice cream and fried chicken.

The past several years my Grandma slipped further and further away. She suffered from Dimentia, and although she was always kind and sweet to us, she didn't know us anymore. She met my children, but she didn't know they were her great grandchildren. It isn't easy to watch someone you love slip away a little at a time, but it is something to watch a child love someone just because of who you told her she was. My children will not know Grandma Fox as I knew her, they will know her through the memories I share with them. My Anna bears her middle name, Louise, which means warrior, which I think both have proven to be. I rejoice in my Grandma being with Jesus and knowing once again that she is a child of God, dearly loved, sorely missed, but always remembered.