From my earliest memory, I was in love with Kenny Rogers. Completely smitten. I’m sure it had something to do with the fact that my single mom and I lived with my grandparents and great-grandmother. Everyone in the house loved country music. Kenny, Dolly, the Oakridge Boys, and several more sang to me every day in the backseat of my grandmothers Cadillac. My grandfather jokingly referred to Loretta Lynn as his girlfriend and it was a major tragedy in our household when Crystal Gail’s hair was shut in her car door and she had to have several inches trimmed. Oh, the grieving we experienced over those lost locks.
With Meme at our happy place, the Clarendon Ranch.
One of my favorite Christmas gifts ever to receive was a Kenny Rogers record signed by the legend himself. It was a gift from my grandmother and was deeply coveted. It became my claim to fame anytime there was a conversation about brushes with the rich and famous. (That, and my mom said Eddie Rabbit drank out of our coke after a concert one time.) As you can imagine, these stories brought instant popularity throughout elementary and especially middle school. Once my 1990 peers heard “Kenny Rogers”, they completely overlooked the uni-brow covering my forehead and begged me to sit at their lunch table.
Much too soon, my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer. As her time on earth drew to the end, I sat beside her bed trying to fit in as many conversations as we could. Meme was my person. My rock. My constant. Throughout my childhood, I would sometimes burst into tears at the fear of her dying. Odd behavior for a little girl, but I simply couldn’t imagine life without her. Now, at the age of 21, I had to not only imagine it, but prepare for it.
It’s not easy to pack in all the conversations to sustain the rest of my life without her, but we did our best. In the middle of one of those talks, it hit me that I never asked how she got the handsome Mr. Rogers to sign my record. Did she meet him on one of their trips to Vegas? Did she mail it to him? Was she a member of his Fan Club? Was that membership transferable? How was I going to live without her? Didn’t God know she was everything to me? How did life go on without your person here on earth? So many questions…not near enough time.
In the middle of our reminiscing, I asked the question, “Meme, you never told me how or where you had Kenny Rogers sign my record, was it Vegas? Did you see him in concert?” She looked at me so confused that I thought the nurse must have upped her medicines. Finally, she said, “Oh honey, I thought you knew…I signed that.”
Stop the press. Pause the tears. WHAT?? Et tu Brute?
Meme left for heaven later that week. I think once her confession was over, she was eager to meet Jesus with a clear conscious. I’m sure he overlooked the Kenny Rogers fib, as I’m almost positive that was the worst thing she had to answer for. After all, Meme was 99.9% perfect and 100% endearing.
Just ask Kenny Rogers. Oh, wait…
Life is for the living. Seasons came, went and we struggled to keep moving. I’ve since recognized that in Meme’s last days, she was gently encouraging me to press into my Creator. To listen and honor the voice inside me as I learned to do the hard things. My Creator should be my person, not her, who was leaving. She was teaching me to stand on my own, while I was still holding on to her pant leg, as if she were dropping me off with a babysitter who resembled Marilyn Manson.
Seventeen years later, I still miss her deeply. I don’t reckon that will ever change, but time has dulled the sting to bearable. I dream more of her and less of Kenny Rogers. I’ve since replaced my little record with iTunes and Pandora. I have learned when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em.
Meme left me with an ace that I can keep and lessons that I am still learning from.
Handsome Hubs and I at the Kenny Rogers exhibit in the Country Music Hall of Fame