style="font-size:15px;"> “You don’t have to say anything, Perry. I can tell you hate that you didn’t witness to him enough. Let me just let you off the hook—I’ve witnessed to Saxon. He’s heard the gospel. He shoved me off, told me he said all the right things in the correct places he needed to, to let people think he knew the Lord, but in reality he told me he didn’t. Hearing that news was so damning, so final, so finite. He’s got to pull through this, son. There is absolutely nothing wrong with hoping for another chance to make sure he knows God. Heck, maybe he was just pulling my leg and he already does. I mean, you football players have heard so much that you’re the best of the best and that you’re the cream of the crop, unlike regular students. Sometimes, most times, you get close-minded.”
We ended our talk in prayer and as soon as I got back to my apartment, I didn’t have time to chat with Lance and Deuce. One of them had been in the kitchen preparing dinner, and though they had a plate set aside for me, it just wasn’t social time for me. I was so mad that I couldn’t go see my grandma, because the Peach State, which never gets an ounce of snow, had flurries falling. I called my dad and said, “I’m just gonna come.”
“Naw, son, I don’t need you on the road. It’s really cold, it’s icy out there. It’s a little bit of rain mixed with that snow. Please stay put. Your grandma’s up and she can talk. But I want to warn you—the stroke has affected the appearance of her face. The doctors are saying she’s not out of the woods. If you want, you can talk to her for a moment.”
“She’s awake? Yeah, yeah. Let me talk to her.”
“Hey, punkin pie, you’ve been worried about me, boy?”
“Yes ma’am,” I said.
“I heard you every time you came and visited me. I’m always asleep and they only let me have a few visitors up in that little old hospital room, but I know you been there, I seen ya. I’m supposed to be the sick one, but one time I woke up and you were knocked out. I ain’t bother you, though. I figured you needed your rest. One of my boyfriends said you were nice at the hospital, signing autographs and stuff. You know that meant a lot to me.”
“Grandma, you are crazy!”
“And getting better every day.”
“You better be getting better,” I told her. “I got to buy you that big old house one day soon—big enough to have your different men in different parts of it, that kind of big.”
“Oh, child, please. I don’t need to hide nobody. I’ve been thinking, seeing stuff. I just had to break all of their hearts and had to let them know that I was still in love with my dead husband. I’m real tired, Perry. I know God has got something better for me than all of this.”
“But Grandma, you gon’ be okay,” I urged.
“Yeah, I’ma be alright up in Heaven, boy, and ain’t no doubt that’s where I’m going—to my momma, my great grandmomma, to see her face who I haven’t seen since I was little. Your granddaddy, mm-hmm, he mad that I got a lot of ole men friends, but we’ll straighten all of that out when I get up there.”
“Grandma, you don’t need to talk like that.”
“Baby, if you don’t remember nothing I done taught you, and I know I done taught you a lot—”
“Yes ma’am, you have.”
“—I want you to remember that if you are a believer there ain’t nothing wrong with knowing that this place is not your home. Be excited about what’s to come. Ain’t no need in rushing nothing and I ain’t saying—well maybe I am saying. Whenever the Lord say I’m ready, I’ll be ready. Make sure you lay some pretty red roses on my grave now.”
I agreed, but her crazy talking was making me more irritable. I really felt sick. I started coughing, my body started aching. Would my life get well?
“So, this is Hotlanta, huh?” my cousin Pillar said as I drove her around downtown. She was something else, a cute mixed girl that knew she had it going on.
“So where you want to go, what you want to see?” I asked her, hoping she had a plan.
“This is your town. Everyone knows who you are and that you’re the man in it, wherever.”
I turned the car around and headed for the Georgia Aquarium. It was now the largest in the world. Now that I only lived two miles from it on Tech’s campus I’d never had a chance to visit. When I pulled up she said sarcastically, “Oh, so you thought I wanted to see some fish?”
I knew she was high maintenance and would insist on telling me where she wanted to go. I stupidly had taken her at her word, and my plan wasn’t good enough. I pulled over and said, “Alright, where do you want to go?”
“I thought we could go to Morehouse.”
It was so obvious that she wanted to flirt with somebody, but I knew that there was a gate on campus and tricked her and said, “Yeah, we can go to the AU.”
“It’s called the Atlanta University Center, right?”
“Yep.”
“Oh my gosh, this campus is nice,” she said, looking at the Spelman campus. “I like Stanford and all, but it’s just too rigid. I know I’m half white, but I need some culture, plus I need to get away from my folks. They can just drive up when they want and that just irks me.”
“Hey, we can get out and walk. It’s cold and there’s ice on the ground.”
“I just want to go to the admissions office and check out what my options are. Then maybe I can transfer.”
Just as we stepped out my phone rang. “Hey mom.”
“Hey, where you at sweetie?”
“I’m with Pillar.”
“Yeah, her dad told me. I just saw him a moment ago at the hospital.”
I sighed. The look of despair on my face made my cousin Pillar ask me, “Cuz, what’s wrong?”
I held up one finger to ask her to hold on for a minute, when all of a sudden my mom made me drop to my knees when she said, “Your grandmother is gone.”
“It’s Grandma.”
“Oh no, are you serious? She was okay. I was just with her last night.” My cousin started crying and I held her.
“Alright Mom, we’ll be out there.”
“Aight baby, ain’t no need in rushing. She’s in a better place.”
Here one minute and gone the next. She had just told me she was tired, but I so wished she had gotten a good night’s rest and been rejuvenated. However, she took a turn for the worst, having a second stroke that sent her on to glory.
It was actually a great thing. The next several days were so much fun. My family was rejuvenated, we laughed through our tears. Her friends came by and told stories that confirmed my grandma was crazy. She was certainly one of a kind and would definitely be missed, but she knew the Lord and she knew where she was going and
