And This Is But One Reason Why We Love Her

When David’s grandmother, Sissie, fell this past weekend and broke her hip, we were understandably concerned. She’s 96, weighs about 100 pounds soaking wet, and she’s increasingly frail (which makes perfect sense what with her being 96 and 100 pounds and all).

So when we got the news that her surgery to set the hip was scheduled for Sunday morning, David and his brother, who was here visiting, decided that they’d better head on over so that they could be there. Sissie has managed to combat all manner of ills with little more than a baby aspirin and a multi-vitamin, but surgery for someone her age is Serious Business. So late Saturday night, the brothers headed to Mississippi.

Around 6:45 Sunday morning, David and Scott went to the hospital so they could see Sissie before she went into surgery. Sissie was very nervous and had taken a “val-yum,” as my mother-in-law Martha says, about thirty minutes beforehand – pretty stiff medication for someone whose idea of heavy pharmaceutical usage is taking two Bayer aspirin within four hours of each other.

So when David and Scott walked in Sissie’s hospital room, she was, for all intents and purposes, hammered. And when they started talking to her, Sissie’s only reply was, “Where are they, Martha? WHERE ARE THEY?”

Martha explained to Sissie that she should quit looking toward the ceiling in the hopes of seeing her grandsons and should instead look to her left.

Once Sissie was wheeled into the operating room, David and Scott had the distinct pleasure of listening to Martha talk with her friends Mary Ann and Rubena (I am not making up that name. HOW COULD I?) about all manner of serious issues: the high cost of cable television, the high cost of electrical power, the high cost of gasoline, etc. David vows that at one point Rubena started a sentence with the phrase, “Speaking of cutting your head off…,” and I really have no idea what she said after that because really, why does it matter in light of such a brilliant segue?

A couple of hours later, Sissie was back in her room. The surgery went well, and – I KID YOU NOT – these were her first words as she came out from under the anesthesia:

“Martha, will you put my lipstick on for me?”

I mean, breaking her hip was one thing. Having surgery to set it was another. But not having color on her lips as she received visitors would be insult to any Southern woman’s injury.

It all makes perfect sense to me.