Death In The Family

My grandmother, Dixie Claire Brooks, (formerly Wallace, of Sir William's true line; as the Brooks line can be traced back to William The Conqueror, The Carter Family Singers, President Jimmy Carter and the outlaw Pretty Boy Floyd) was born four years before Black Friday on a farm whose original parcel was part of the Sooner Land Grab in Oklahoma.

Her mother Lucy Wallace was a schoolteacher, and her father James Wallace was a cowboy (who made his own skillets on the forge, and employed the most unique recycling program I've ever heard of when he fed their dead nag to the pigs, as it was always done out on the prairie.) His brother Marion was a U.S. Marshall in Texas who was reportedly shot in the back by an outlaw.

Dixie and her sisters Carrie and Blanche were cowgirls who wore pants and rolled their own cigarettes. She went on to Nursing school, where she met a young Airman from Georgia who had crawled his way up from Hell, where one pulls a plow barefoot. Dixie and Gene Brooks wed in the Postwar years, and contributed three visionary geniuses just like them, to the Baby Boom.


When I was no more than a small armload, Grandma Dixie used to wrap me in an afghan she knitted (which my little girl inherited), rock me in Papa's old rocking chair, and sing old gospel songs like "I Shall Not Be Moved", and "I'll Fly Away." Every year on my birthday, she sent me a card with twenty-five dollars in it. Every. Year. Last year included.

Just before her Oklahoma-sized heart got tired after eighty-four years and started yelling for a break, I had the honor of editing a novel she wrote called No Greater Love. We were always emailing, and there is a new afghan she knitted draped across our beloved old couch. Serena and I take that afghan on picnics, and camping, always with a very clear idea of the love that went into it, and who made it. It is reserved for the most special of occasions.

Grandma Dixie was so preternaturally thoughtful, she even sent us the table napkin I am now using to wipe my eyes and blow my snotty nose so I can even see. Somehow I doubt she'd mind.

Dixie was one of the four or five people I've ever known who I would call a true Christian. She was also one of the two wisest and truly holiest women I've ever known ( the other being my late Grandmother Ruth Morris, who preceded her by a good few years.)

I have been going through a lot of napkins today, and very little else. I would give my EYESIGHT to be in Georgia right now, but there is neither enough time nor enough money.

The doctors say they have done all they can. My Aunt Margaret, who is also a writer, put this better than I could right now. Sure, the world is a lot poorer, but they're already singing in Heaven.