Oh Dohie

I haven't written on this guy in a very long time. My entire state of mind has been altered since my last post, thanks to our gracious Father.
I was driving home today and suddenly had a rare desire to take my grandmother, Dohie, out to dinner. I ended up eating mac n cheese and toasted hamburger buns at her house, but it was such a blessing. She's the stereotypical crazy old woman who talks all the time and has a house full of pictures. But she remembers every detail and can tell stories like nobody's buisness. I asked her how her and Daddy Pi (my grandpa who died of lung cancer a few years ago) had met and fallen in love and it was such a classic story. She was a little school teacher in Augusta, AR and his family fell in love with her. His momma kept writing and telling him, the big city man in Philly, that the sweetest girl was down in AR and he needed to come visit his momma and meet this girl of his dreams. Dohie ended up in D.C. as a secretary a few years later, and one day he came in and asked for her since he was so tired of his mother bugging him. She wasn't there, so he gave her apartment a ring. He was supposed to be taking this blond bombshell to a party, but stood her up because he stayed at Dohie's apartment til 2 in the morning just talking! He tried to kiss her at the door and she refused. ha! I was shocked, but her response was, "Oh, those Marine boys. They're fast". They went on only three dates and decided to get married. "I knew I was in love. From the moment I saw him, he was so handsome and as sweet as could be." Daddy Pi always wore big expensive hats because they shaved his head in the Marines and it never grew back. Dohie says he was extremely self conscious about it, but he "had such a lovely round head." I smiled. Sipped my sweet tea. We went through her jewelry and she gave me the most beautiful antique rings. "Hannah Grace, I was feeling down tonight. God sent you over here to cheer me up."
My eyes were misty as she reminised about a distant past. I could see her, with full bright red lips and a contagious floating laugh. I could see her smile before the wrinkles and sags. She was beautiful, real. And her heart has written and stowed away images and words that keep it beating some days. God has placed in her mind memories that keep her young, alive, and ever aware of His goodness throughout her life. What a blessing the memory is. What a blessing grandparents are.