Like Father, Like Son

My husband, George, is a triathlete. Triathletes compete in three sports back-to-back: swim, bike, and run. George started small, doing shorter Olympic-distance races. Then he moved up to half-Ironman races but didn’t feel that was crazy enough. He made it his goal to go “all the way” by competing in official Ironman races consisting of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a 26.2-mile marathon. He has attempted four Ironman events, finished two of them, and is “tri-ing” again in September. This makes me his Ironmate.

Pardon me while I pause to shudder over the insanity of it all.

You can just imagine how unsettling it was to watch my firstborn son train to compete in his first triathlon. Nick has never been interested in team sports—a trait that came from my genes, not George’s. I despised P.E. in school and wormed my way out of the physical education requirement for graduation by doing odd jobs for the P.E. teachers…jobs like tacking notes on lockers, grading written tests, and cleaning out desk drawers. No sweat. Literally. I don’t like sweat. It’s too salty.

Five years ago, at the age of four, Nick realized that scoring goals in soccer required drill and hard work, so he quit. He refused to set foot on the field and preferred to horse around on the sidelines, pulling up grass and throwing it up in the air to watch the breeze blow it away. He took swim lessons next but hated having to do what the teacher said. He just wanted to play in the water. Then he took gymnastics but hated doing sit-ups and drills and whatever else the teacher told him to do. He just wanted to jump on the trampoline.

Play is important to children. So are discipline and drill. For discipline and drill to be worth it, however, a child must care about the goal. Soccer, swimming, and gymnastics simply didn't inspire Nick to work. But when George told him that our YMCA was hosting a youth triathlon along with an adult sprint-distance race, Nick found his inspiration. The course for the 7-11 age group included a 100-yard swim, 3-mile bike ride, and a 1-mile run. George asked Nick if he wanted to do the race, explaining that he would have to work hard training for it. Nick insisted he wanted to do it.

George took Nick to the pool a few times and quickly realized his best option for the swim was breast stroke, as Nick’s front crawl looked a lot like drowning. What impressed me during these training sessions was Nick’s focused determination. I’ve never seen that in him for any other athletic endeavor, and my heart practically burst with pride to see him motivating himself to do something hard.

On the morning of the race, George left early to compete in the sprint, and I followed later with the kids. Nick was excited, and in the car, he said, “I’m going to win this race!”

Whoa, Nelly. I said, “Nick, triathlon isn’t about winning. Your dad has never ‘won’ a race. Triathlon is about finishing. If you finish, you win, no matter where you place. Finishing gives you a goal for the next race.” I don’t think he heard me.

We met up with George, who had pulled a muscle on the run of his race but still finished with a respectable time. He wasn’t wearing his finisher medal, and when I asked why, he said, with mild scorn, “It was just a sprint.” I matched his scorn and replied, “You are such a tri-snob!” I suppose when you have finished two Ironman races, a little sprint race isn’t such a big deal. I told him I was surprised he wasn’t wearing his Ironman finisher t-shirt, and he admitted he’d thought about it.

George walked Nick through the registration and set-up, helping him check in, strap on the timing chip, and set up his bike and gear bag in the transition area. Nick, in his baggy, Hawaiian-print, jammers-style swim trunks, looked like a surfer dude, but his competition, in black lycra swim shorts, looked serious.

As Jack and I waited and watched from the sidelines, I kept tearing up behind my sunglasses. My son. Taking on a major athletic event. I was torn between nervousness and pride, and I sincerely prayed he would be able to finish.

Nothing is worse than not finishing.

Finally, the athletes were called to the pool. George, Jack, and I watched as Nick took position about two-thirds down the line. Swimmers would enter the pool at three-second intervals. Nick looked focused, serious, charged to go.

As the first athletes hit the pool, George and I realized Nick needed better training for the swim. Those kids had obviously paid attention during their swim lessons and were wicked fast. Nick got in the water and did well for someone doing the breast stroke against skilled swimmers doing the front crawl. He didn’t panic as people passed him and just kept swimming. Before he came out of the water, George headed out to the transition area to be ready to help him there, so Jack and I were left to watch Nick finish the swim.

Nick left the water dead last by over half a length. I was so worried that he would want to quit, want to give up, feel like a failure. Instead, I snapped this picture as he ran to the transition area.

That’s no quitter.

Jack and I, along with other bystanders, shouted encouragement as we followed him to the transition area. He hesitated when he realized he would be wet for the bike, and stopped to dry his feet and legs thoroughly and to pull on his shoes and socks. He snapped into his helmet and off he went, pedaling as fast as he could.

We couldn’t see him for most of the bike course, but when he came back to the transition area, he was no longer last. He had to walk part of the run course because of a side stitch, but as soon as he realized the finish line was in sight, he pushed hard and ran across the line.



Nick Raihala, you are a Triathlete!

We walked with Nick to the refreshment area, where he chose a donut and root beer for his post-race recharge. He graciously shared his donut with his brother and basked in the glow of a race well done. George asked about the hill on the bike course, and Nick replied, “It was heinous!”

But he did it. And he wants to do it again. In July, we’ll be down in Mason, Ohio, for another youth race. If you’re in the area, come and cheer the young athletes on. Nick will be in lycra swim shorts and sunglasses, just like the other athletes, because George is already teaching him that gear is good.

And so is working hard toward a goal, even if that goal is, well, sort of insane.

Ping Pong Balls in a Rubber Room with Some Dirty Parts

Do I have your attention? Oh, good. Life’s been crazy, and the inside of my head feels like a rubber room full of ping pong balls: lots of ideas bouncing around in random, pointless directions without rhyme or reason, purposeless, confusing and confused, rattling around without going anywhere, hollow, rambling….See what I mean? So after last week’s lengthy comedy of errors, I offer you a short story with some dirty parts. I hope you enjoy it.

Yesterday, I volunteered in Jack’s kindergarten class, which is celebrating Right to Read Week. His teacher asked parents to share their favorite book from childhood with the class.

Regular readers of Questioning know I don’t have favorite books. As far as I am concerned, the whole idea of “favorite books” is simply silly. The world of literature is rich and full and beautiful. Picking favorites is cruel, and I’ll not do it. Instead, I picked a random book off the shelf that I remember loving as a child—A Harry the Dirty Dog Treasury—and dashed off to kindergarten.

I bought this modern reprint a few years ago. Nick loved it, but Jack found its complete lack of Thomas the Tank Engine disappointing and never paid attention when I read it at home. I didn’t care. There were twenty-two other children in his class. Some of them were bound to appreciate the likeable white dog with black spots.

Sitting on a rocker in front of twenty-three children, I pointed out the title of the book and explained to the class that the book had three Harry stories in it, and that we were not reading the Dirty Dog story, but the story called No Roses for Harry.

The reading went well. Even Jack sat riveted by the wonderful illustrations and my dramatic reading. When I finished, Jack asked:

“Mommy, can you read the dirty parts.”

Laughing hysterically at your son in front of twenty-two of his friends is NEVER a good idea. I bit my lip and then asked, “Do you want me to read Harry the Dirty Dog, Jack?” He and the other children said yes.

I looked toward the teacher for permission. She smiled and said I could read another story. Then, in an aside to me, she added, “Just skip the dirty parts.”

All's Well That Ends Well

Author’s Note: As a literary critic, I truly appreciate tragedy. Hamlet, for instance, is a perfect play…complex, multi-layered, emotionally messy but carefully balanced, the epitome of tragic theater. As a reader, however, I prefer comedy, which really is much more fun because, while bad things often happen along the way, everything turns out fine in the end. Tragedies end with a funeral. Comedies usually end with a wedding. I know which type of play I’d rather end up in.

So when I recounted the following story to a friend last week, she caught my attention when she said, “Well, at least you got a great story out of the experience.” She’s right. What starts out with tragedy becomes comedy. Of course, the fact that this story makes me look like a total idiot is embarrassing, but that’s the price one pays for a good story.


We’ve all had days when every little thing that can go wrong does. For women, these days almost always take place when we have PMS because no-good, horrible, very bad days are as much about how we see what happens to us as what actually happens to us. When we have PMS, our brain chemistry forces us to see every single tiny bad thing that happens as part of an insidious conspiracy perpetrated by a Universe whose sole purpose for existing is to piss us off.

The Tuesday I drove back to Ohio after my grandmother’s funeral was a no-good, horrible, very bad day full of PMS and grief. Nick, Jack, and I expected to be on the road for about nine hours. As we pulled out of my mother’s driveway in Charlotte at 6:30 in the morning, the birds were singing, the azaleas were blooming, and the sun was rising. Nick immediately put a DVD into the player and got an error message. I stopped at a nearby McDonalds to buy a mocha and tried to fix the player. No joy. It was broken, and no amount of percussive maintenance would make it play.

Damn. No DVD player. Nick started to freak out but calmed when I said we would stop at a Target if we saw one and buy a new player. He had hope. We all need hope, don’t we?

I was grieving and tired, so I made a point of paying attention to my driving. I scanned my mirrors constantly, never changed lanes without checking my blind spot, kept a safe following distance, and paid attention to speed limit signs. The rain and wind started about an hour into the trip, which made me even more vigilant. I checked my map periodically and knew I needed to stay on I-77 to Charleston, West Virginia. Around Wytheville, Virginia, however, the wind and rain grew worse, and I focused all my attention on the heavy traffic around me and keeping us safe. There was no attention left over for things like directional signs or interstate exit ramps.

We kept driving and the weather improved a bit. All was well until I saw a mileage sign to Knoxville. This struck me as odd. We weren’t going west to Knoxville. We were going north to Charleston. Weren’t we?

As we passed the next highway marker, I saw we were inexplicably on I-81. Where did I-77 go? My boys really didn’t need to hear the choice words I screamed at the Universe (and myself) at that moment. How far had we come down the WRONG FREAKING HIGHWAY!??!?!

It seemed to take forever to reach the next exit where I could stop and check the atlas. FIFTY-TWO miles we’d come from Wytheville. I started to cry. Nick realized immediately that this meant longer in the car without a DVD player and started to cry, too. I couldn’t take it and did something I vowed never to do as a mother: I laid a guilt trip on my son. My beloved grandmother had died, I was sad, and how dare he add to my suffering with his whining about my lack of situational awareness that just added nearly two hours of misery to his life?

The guilt-trip worked, but I’ll never do it again. It just made me feel worse.

I saw a Kmart and decided to buy a new DVD player because I was the worst mother in the world for cussing in front of my children and guilt-tripping my firstborn son. Kmart was my beacon of hope, which just goes to show how far from good sense I had sunk. We found the electronics department and asked the employee behind the counter where the portable DVD players were. She pointed and said, “Down there. If we have any. I don’t think we do, though.”

She was right. Nick, Jack, and I stared at two completely empty shelves with nothing but labels for portable DVD players. To no one in particular, I loudly stated, “I hate Kmart.”

Aren’t you proud of me for not dropping the F-bomb? For the record, I didn’t drop that particular profanity the whole day. Way to go, me!

When we got back in the car, I started to cry. Hope had died in me while I stared at the empty shelves. My crying stopped Nick’s whining. I took a deep breath, got control of myself again, and headed back east from whence we came.

At Wytheville, or perhaps it was beyond—things got fuzzy for a while—we stopped in pouring rain at a McDonalds that advertised a play land. It turned out to be a pathetic little toddler play area. It figures. We ate lunch, the kids ran around this small, soft-shape space, making the best of the situation in a way I could not. When it was time to go, I ordered a mocha, bottled water, and two apple juice boxes. The employee put the cold drinks in a paper bag. I remember thinking this wasn’t a good idea. Pouring rain and condensation would wet the paper bag…clearly disaster lay ahead. But my brain couldn’t do more than register this inevitable chain of events. Perhaps, I thought, it will hold. It’s not far to the car.

The bag gave way in the middle of the parking lot. I think I swore again when my hot mocha slopped onto my hand. I know I cried. No one noticed because I was dripping wet after dropping the umbrella.

The boys, with full tummies and terminally bored, slept. I drove. I drove through wind and rain. I drove through freaking hail.

We made it through Charleston and eventually over the border into Ohio. It was around 3:30, and we needed gas. We exited, got gas, and tried to return to I-35 westbound. Turns out that exit has one of those weird setups where you have to drive all through town to get westbound again. I was looking for signs but never saw any directing me westbound. Instead, I got trapped in the lane for the eastbound on-ramp and had to drive five miles in the wrong direction to the next exit to turn around.

At this point, the ridiculousness of the day started to dawn on me. All I could think was that we were alive and unhurt. That was a blessing, right? It had also stopped raining. I was almost to the point of seeing how comedic the whole day had been, but not quite. Then the phone rang.

I don’t talk on the phone and drive at the same time, so I pulled to the side of the highway and returned my mother's call. It was now 4:00, past the time I’d told her we would be home, and we still had two hours to go. As I poured out some of the day’s tragic comedy into my mother’s sympathetic ear, a state patrol officer pulled up. My first thought, honestly, was “Someone cares!” I hung up the phone and smiled for the officer, who asked, “Is there a problem, ma’am?”

Don’t you love it when they call you “ma’am”?

I told him all was well, that I’d only stopped to make a call, and he thanked me for not driving and dialing. I felt so much better knowing this strong, competent uniformed officer hadn’t ignored my stopped car. He was watching over things on his beat, my angel with a badge. “I’m glad everything is okay…” he said, but was interrupted by a voice from the back seat.

“Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me.” It was Jack, my second angel of the day.

“What is it?” the officer replied, leaning down to look at the polite boy in the back seat.

“Please don’t take my mommy to jail. She’s not a bad guy. She’s a good guy.”


Oh. My. God. Comedy broke loose everywhere.

After the chuckling officer left, I started back on the road with a prayer: Lord, please let us get home safely. I’d said that prayer all day long, but somehow, I trusted now that it would be answered--that it had, in fact, been answered all day long while I was wallowing in a miserable comedy of errors.

Two hours later, we pulled into our garage. While I unloaded the car, a smiling cherub named Parker delivered a plate of brownies from my third angel of the day, Debra. I downed one morsel of chocolate deliciousness right away, finished unloading, and heated up the yummy meal George—my fourth angel—had left waiting for us. Nick and I plopped in front of the television with dinner and watched Pride and Prejudice. Nick was my fifth angel for letting me pick the only movie he watched all day. And he enjoyed it.

Thus our story ends with Jane Austin, chardonnay, grilled chicken, brownies, and at least two happy weddings.

Isn’t comedy so much better than tragedy?

Good Advice

The world is full of advice. Self-help books, Dr. "How's that working for you?" Phil, religious leaders, teachers, doctors, celebrities, mothers, fathers, and friends all tell us what to do, when to do it, how to do it. Of course sometimes their advice is bad, such as when my father-in-law’s told us not to buy Apple stock in the late ‘90s. We didn’t listen to him, and can you say “iPod” and "iPhone"? YES! But too often, people’s advice makes sense, and if we followed it, our lives would be better, happier, and healthier.

Why, then, don’t we take advice, even when we know it is good for us? I’m baffled by this oh-so-human failing. Perhaps it’s the result of some evolutionary quirk because every person I know seems afflicted by it.

Two years ago, I took the RealAge test. If you’ve never taken it, I encourage you to give it a whirl. The results show your “real” age, adjusted for lifestyle choices, diet, exercise, and general health. Just be sure to click NO on the questions asking if you want information on diet and exercise or your in-box will be flooded with spam. I’ve warned you in bold italics, so you can’t blame me if you don't take my advice.

In 2007, RealAge gave me a four-year credit for all the great choices I made, so at the age of 40, my RealAge was 36. Woohoo! At the time, I exercised a few times each week (it was summer and I walked the dog), and I also drove the speed limit, didn’t talk on the cell phone while driving, drank a half a glass of wine a day, had good cholesterol levels and blood pressure, kept my weight reasonable, yadda, yadda.

Three areas of my life warranted improvement, according to the experts at RealAge. They recommended I exercise more and at higher intensity, eat more fruit and veggies, and take a calcium supplement. No surprises in any of those suggestions, and I had no reason not to follow this excellent advice…except that I’m lazy, and prefer chocolate to fruit and veggies, and can’t seem to remember to take the supplements sitting on my bathroom counter.

Why is it so hard to follow good advice?

In the last two years, I pretty much quit exercising altogether. The dog now has arthritis and moves much more slowly, which means walking him hardly counts as a workout anymore. I intended to start rowing again and had George haul the rowing machine up from the basement. It’s now very dusty in the corner of our bedroom. Mr. Ironman keeps asking when I’m going to use it, and I answer, “Eventually.” I also intended to eat more fruits and veggies and to take the supplements.

You don’t need to say it. I already know the road to hell is paved with good intentions. When I took the RealAge test this April, the news was indeed hellish. I lost all but six months of the four-year credit I had.

Yikes. I really am 42.

Unfortunately, the RealAge test doesn’t ask how much soda a person drinks. By last July, I drank five cans of Coca-Cola Classic a day and had gained almost ten pounds in about six months. When I told George of my intention to quit, he laughed at me. He’d heard that particular intention many times before.

He’s not laughing now. I quit Coke in August and have lost 18 pounds. Kicking a life-long addiction to fizzy high-fructose corn syrup should be a good thing, right? No more bone-leeching carbonation, empty calories, and tooth-rotting acid, right? Wrong. Ironically, losing 18 pounds works against my RealAge score since it reflects a significant yo-yo in weight that isn’t healthy.

Sometimes a girl just can’t win.

When I took the RealAge test a few weeks ago, the experts had lots more good advice for me, truly reflecting my deterioration in the last two years.

Get more calcium, folic acid, potassium, vitamin C, vitamin D, and vitamin E. I guess I have to open those bottles on my counter and pop some pills.

Cut down on red meat. I’m sorry, but if God didn’t want us to eat cows, He wouldn’t have given them tasty parts, like ribeyes. Thank you, God, for ribeyes.

Vary your veggies. It’s not enough that I eat more, I have to vary them. Sheesh!

Work out more often and more intensely. Duh. I felt great when I worked out seriously, and my back was incredibly strong. I do want to feel that healthy again.

Tighten and tone with weights, which is useful for keeping my bones from disintegrating as well as for boring me to death. I hate weight lifting.

Stretch. I’ve intended to start yoga for years….

Protect your joints. The arthritis pains in my knees and hands need to be addressed rather than ignored, apparently. But seeing as I can’t take ibuprofen without giving myself ulcers, and the alternative meds can cause heart problems, I think I’m between a rock and hard place on that one. Hopefully, my doctor will have a useful suggestion.

RealAge’s advice is all good. But is a life without ribeye worth living? I might be able to eat less red meat but cannot promise any more than that. Some changes, however, seem much more important than others. The exercise, fruit, veggies, and vitamins deserve immediate attention. I really don’t want to develop the osteoporosis that dissolved my grandmother’s bones. She spent the last 18 months of her life in a nursing home bed. I don't want to go there.

If I don’t do something now, though, that’s where I’ll end up. Guess I better get my butt in gear and take RealAge’s advice seriously. When I tell George this, hopefully he’ll laugh at me. Then I know I’ll succeed, just to show him who’s boss.

PS As for the funny grandparent stories, I decided to send cards to everyone who submitted them...so Gina, chelemom, Susan, and Carrie, please send me your snail-mail address. And yes, Angela, you'll get one, too, even though you sent an email instead of posting a comment!

My Bad

Edited to add: You may now subscribe to Simplicity by following the link to that blog and using the box in the right column...it should work now!

I just realized that people subscribing to my stamping blog, Simplicity by Lateblossom, are actually being sent this blog, Questioning my Intelligence. While I'm not quite sure what I did wrong, I promise to get this straightened out as quickly as I can.

Hopefully, some of you who were misdirected here find my writing interesting enough to stick around. If not, I promise not to be offended if you unsubscribe as long as you resubscribe to Simplicity when it's all straightened out. If you just quit me altogether, however, I'll be forced to eat chocolate to console myself. You don't want that, do you?

Have a happy weekend, everyone.

My New Favorite Picture

Here is my new favorite picture of my grandmother. The spots of rouge directly under her eyes are no doubt the work of one of her grandchildren. My, oh, my. She loved to clown around!

I'm always the one doing the "talking" on this blog, but today, why don't we get a bit more interactive? Please share a happy memory of your grandparents in the comments. I will send a card--a LateBlossom original!--to the person whose comment makes me laugh loudest. The deadline for comments is midnight Eastern time, April 26, 2009.


My deep and heartfelt thanks to all of you who have expressed your sympathy for my family's loss through cards, emails, hugs, and brownies.

And an aside to Karen DeRosa: I'm currently wearing the Miss Fabu-licious sash with the belief that if I think it, I am it. Thank you!

In Memoriam

Ann Lee Grigg Willis
February 26, 1920 - April 17, 2009

Ann Willis passed away early in the morning on April 17, 2009. She is survived by two daughters, Dianne Dumont and Linda Hinnant; by Linda's husband, Darius Hinnant; by four granddaughters, Susan Raihala, Lisa Dumont, Kathy Ives, and Jennifer Edwards; by eight great-grandchildren; and by one brother, Walter Grigg. She was preceeded in death by her husband, David Lee Willis; and by four brothers and one sister.

Below is the eulogy I wrote for her funeral on Sunday, April 19. I want to thank my brother-in-law, Tom McCarthy, for reading it so eloquently since I could not. I also want to thank Dr. Dewey Smith for making the service a true celebration of my grandmother's life. Dr. Smith, his wife Nellie Smith, Jim Thompson, Cam Gilbert, and Doris Norwood provided the music.

Today we gather to celebrate the life of Ann Lee Grigg Willis, an amazing, funny, strong, and beautiful woman who touched all our lives with grace and love and laughter.

She was born on February 26, 1920. Her mother died when she was young, leaving Ann and six siblings to be split up among friends and relatives until their father remarried. This early experience of loss and the rebuilding of her family by a loving second mother may explain the exceptional dedication to family that touches so many of our memories of her.

As a member of the Greatest Generation, Ann endured the Depression and World War II, with all the struggle and challenge of those two periods in history. During the war, she and her husband, D.L., moved numerous times, following D.L.’s ever-changing assignments from Canada to Florida to California and everywhere in between. It could not have been easy to keep the home fires burning, especially with a husband and five brothers deployed and a baby to care for, but whenever she spoke of the war, Ann emphasized the funny stories, the excitement, and the pride and patriotism of that time. Her grandchildren would beg her, “Sing the flag, Grandma!” and she would launch into a rousing chorus of “You’re a Grand Ol’ Flag.”

Ann’s daughters loved visiting historical sites with their mother. Williamsburg and Washington and Monticello came to life for them with Ann’s knowledge of the details of life in early America, and these tours contributed to her collection of historical memorabilia. Her grandchildren grew up playing with this treasure trove, which included such things as Confederate currency, print portraits of all the presidents, numerous books and pictures, and a small bust of her hero, Abraham Lincoln. Ann particularly enjoyed Civil War history, and she took great delight in teasing Kathy’s husband John about his lack of proper reverence for Mr. Lincoln.

Her faith in God was always strong. She taught Sunday school, was an active member of the United Methodist Women’s Circle group, and regularly attended church when she was able. When she could not attend, she studied her Bible lessons through the Upper Room and First Sunday School Quarterly. She always perked up at the nursing home when Linda or Dianne read to her from the Bible, watched church on television Sunday mornings with Dianne, and appreciated visits by ministers and receiving communion.

Ann’s life truly centered on her family. She was always happiest when surrounded by loved ones and took pride in making her house a warm and loving home. It was always neat and clean, with every little detail attended to. She liked to rearrange the furniture and collected the most interesting conversation pieces and knick-knacks, like old wrought-iron scales, a hand-operated coffee grinder, and maracas from Mexico, which she would shake while singing La Cucaracha. She sometimes moved things from their original containers, which caused one houseguest, thinking he was using body powder, to sprinkle Comet cleaner all over himself.

A happy family is a well-fed family, and Ann’s cooking kept people coming back for seconds and thirds. Her specialties were biscuits, fried cornbread, country-style steak, spaghetti, banana pudding, and deviled eggs. Her chocolate cakes were absolutely decadent. She made a moist chocolate layer cake but used real fudge for the icing. When the cake inevitably cracked down the middle due to the weight of the fudge, she’d fill the gap with more fudge. She was the only one who cared that her cakes weren’t pretty; everyone else just fought over who got the biggest piece with the most fudge.

Ann loved gardening and could make almost anything bloom. She shared that love with her daughters and took her grandchildren to Freedom Park to see the trees in flower each year. Birds fascinated her, so she kept a bird bath and feeders for them. When a couple of vagabond chickens decided to take up residence in her back yard, they found avian heaven-on-earth with regular food and an ardent admirer.

One family role that especially delighted Ann was that of grandmother. She was so much fun and would laugh at every little thing her four granddaughters did and recorded their antics in her diary. When her granddaughters wanted to play with her make-up, she allowed them to “make her pretty.” The girls would slather far too much lotion on her hands and face, mess with her hair, apply bright red rouge to her cheeks, and even brush globs of mascara on her lashes. Sometimes, the lipstick stayed in the general area of Ann’s lips, but not always. She let herself be their doll and reveled in their laughter.

Woven throughout all our memories of Ann is her mischievous sense of humor. She loved to tell stories, jokes, and outright lies for a laugh. Her daughters believed she was a Martian who had eyes in the back of her head. She continued this myth with her grandchildren, who thought the fancy rolls of her hair in one of her portraits concealed her antennae. She even convinced one gullible granddaughter that Abe Lincoln slept in MawMaw Willis’s bed.

Those of us who were lucky enough to call Ann either “mother” or “grandmother” have our own favorite memories that come to mind. Here are a few of them.

Dianne moved to Raleigh after marrying, and each time she returned home for a visit, Ann filled the house with wonderful smells, warmth, and comfort, which made Dianne feel so loved and special.

Linda remembers how her mother was always home waiting when she got home from school. One stormy day, however, Linda couldn’t find her mom and started looking everywhere. She eventually found Ann and the dog hiding from the storm under the kitchen table. Also, any time Linda was sick for days on end, Ann would have her take a nice, warm bath. While Linda bathed, Ann put fresh, line-dried sheets on the bed for her.

Darius remembers Ann’s competition with her brother Bill over who could give the silliest presents. He also recalls that special look she would give someone when she felt they were sassy or teasing her, a sort of “What did you just say?” look that often dissolved from sternness into laughter. After dinner one night, when Darius was new to the family, Grandma asked him if he wanted some chocolate pie. He answered, “I sure do!” She smiled slyly at him and said, “I do to. I wish we had some.”

Susan remembers a day when Ann saw an elderly woman sitting alone on a bench in front of a doctor’s office. Ann struck up a conversation with her and discovered the lady had to wait several hours before her son could pick her up. When Ann offered to take her home, she thanked Ann, who replied, “I hope someone would do the same for my mother in the same situation.” Susan also remembers how she and her grandmother had competitions to see who could say “I love you more than you love me” first.

Lisa appreciates how Ann drove her to and from ballet classes, and bought her Easter dress every year. One day when Ann, Lisa, and Susan were leaving JC Penney, a stranger said to her, “What pretty daughters you have!” Ann was pleased to be mistaken for their mother.

Kathy remembers sleeping over at Ann’s house as a little girl. Ann read Charlotte’s Web to her, and the two of them started laughing uncontrollably over Wilbur. They pulled themselves together and tried to keep reading, but instead they just started laughing all over again. Ann later gave Kathy a ceramic pig, and whenever Kathy sees pigs now, she thinks of her Grandma and all the laughter they shared.

Jennifer loved how Ann took the grandchildren to Freedom Park and the Nature Museum, and bought them pencils with little polished stones in them. When Jennifer was tired, Ann put a pillow on her lap and laid Jennifer across it to rock her to sleep in extra comfort. One day, when Jennifer wanted to play barber shop, her grandmother actually let her shake talcum powder onto her hair. It must have taken a lot of shampoo for Ann to get all that powder out of her hair!

Mother Teresa said, “We cannot all do great things, but we can all do small things with great love.” This is the legacy of Ann Willis: a multitude of small things done with great love. We will miss her.