Not sure this is the right spot for this, but I felt the need to share with a bunch of assholes. She would have loved it here.
She was 91, and just diagnosed with covid within the last week. She wasn't doing so well for the last couple months though.
She was cajun, from New Iberia, and the last generation in my family to grow up speaking French. She gave me my first beer, first oyster, and was sitting next to me in what i think was my first memory (a john boat bayou ride with alligators going under us from one side of the shore and up onto the other).
She once tackled me and covered me up when i stumbled on a yellow jacket nest. She was stung 17 times, but I never was. When I was accepted into UT, she gave me this burnt orange mold of a hand doing the hook 'em horns that had to be 30 years old at that point. She was so fucking happy for me.
As a father of daughters, i can only pray that I've prepared them to live their lives as she has. I'd be honored for them to have her integrity and work ethic, love and tenacity.
As I'm sitting here drinking rye, listening to "I Feel Like Hank Williams Tonight" on repeat, and crying my eyes out, I'm trying to push myself into being thankful for the time I had and all the wonderful gifts she's given me, but fuck I'm sad.
Here's to you meemaw. If I happen to end up in the same afterlife as you, we're making gumbo and dirty rice and drinking wine in your kitchen for eternity, all day every day.