Madness In The Middle Kingdom

We here at MIMK are sad to announce a second passing this year in the Brown family. My gramma (Edith Green - more on her last name later) passed away yesterday at the age of 83 after suffering a heart attack. In recent years her health had been declining but she was quite a trooper and still managed to live at home and take care of her husband Newt Green who has health issues of his own. She led a fairly hard life of poverty and gave birth to 9 children (with multiple other miscarriages) but throughout all the hardships she kept up a good sense of humour and was quite a jokester. Once when Newt was quite upset that the family was going to cremate him rather than burial upon his passing he asked Gramma to make sure they didn’t do that. She asked him what happens if she passed first. He said to her rather sweetly “How about we make sure we go together?” She got her Gramma look on her face and said “The way you drive that motorhome sometimes I think we will.”

Oh by the way her last name was Green because after my grandfather Percival Brown passed away she then remarried to Newt Green (HIS name sounds like quite a colour eh?). Right after she remarried people still hadn’t gotten used to the name change which resulted in one good anecdote. Gramma and Newt were taking a trip with my parents and a travel agent called our house to confirm their reservations. My brother was awoken by the phone ringing and was a bit dopey yet. The travel agent asked to speak to Mr. Brown (my dad) and Doug said he wasn’t in and then the agent asked to speak to Mr. Green. My brother got kinda choked at what he thought was a prank phone call and said “Yeah right buddy! You got the wrong colour!” and slammed the phone down in his ear.

When I was brought home from the hospital Gramma set me on the table to give my mom a lesson on how to properly change a diaper. As the story goes when she opened the diaper I peed straight up in the air and right into her coffee cup which was sitting beside me. Apparently I didn’t even graze the rim - just a straight shot right into her Maxwell House.

As a kid I loved going to her house and playing cards with the all the adults. We played 31, Blind 31 (or 31 no peeky) and Pass the Ace for the kitty (bowl of quarters - 3 quarters buy in) She taught me how to play crib and even taught me how to crochet a little bit (by hand .. not with kneedles). She grew up during the Depression years and following so she learned to make due with very little. When my sister and I stayed there on Friday nights we would wake up to watch Saturday morning cartoons and she would make us the thinnest pancakes you could imagine. You could literally see right through them. She would heat up the table (never maple) syrup in a pot and add hot water to make it stretch further. They don’t sound too appetizing but we loved ‘em just the same. On Friday nights she and I would stay up and have a late night snack of Cornflakes in these blue and red patterned bowls that I can’t describe but remember clear as a bell. I really treasure that memory of those shared bowls of Cornflakes.

I am glad that she is not suffering anymore but I still miss her all the same. I loved her very much and being her first grandchild we always had a special bond. Every year when we left to return to China she would hug me and say “I don’t know if I will be around by the time you get back next summer.” I always dismissed her statement by saying “Aaah .. you’re a tough old bird. I don’t think you are going anywhere anytime soon.” Possibly it was with the passing of my sister this summer that made me think differently or possibly it was her obvious health issues but this year when she said it I had a feeling it was more of a prediction than a blanket statement. Of course I replied in my usual way but I wasn’t as convinced as I had been every other year.

I will miss her so much.

August 2007 with Newt and his dog

Summer 2006 with Baby Nathan

Summer 2005 with the First Born Males (my father Richard her oldest son, Me her oldest grandchild and Carter my oldest son)

Summer 2004 with Carter