Viola Pennington died yesterday. Everybody in the little town where I grew up knew her. She was the personification of nice, little old lady.
All my life, she was Grandma Pennington, even though she wasn’t my grandmother. She was my cousins’ grandmother. But since we lived in the same small town and spent a lot of time together as kids, she was Grandma Pennington to me as well.
In recent years, I only saw her about once a year, Christmas Eve. I always spend at least part of Christmas Eve with my Aunt Velma’s family, and Grandma Pennington would be there, and she was always playing some sort of card game. Even in her later years, she had an incredibly sharp mind. Christmas Eve won’t be the same without her this year.
I called my mom at her shop this morning to send some flowers. I would have liked to go to the funeral home, but living 800 miles away makes that a little difficult. Being in the middle of an audit makes that darn near impossible. Having a mom who is a florist does make this a little easier.