time has told me she's a rare, rare find

Next week, Matt and I plan to head back to Tennessee for a brief trip, particularly to visit a very sweet lady who is near and dear to my heart - my grandmother.

She has been in the hospital now for a few weeks, and I have been anxious to make it back in town to visit her. I am hoping that God will keep blessing her with life and that she will get to meet Natalie in November. After all, Natalie needs to meet the person who she will receive her middle name after!

My grandmother, Elsie, started her life in Regensburg, Germany, where she was one of the daughters of a well-to-do hotel/restaurant/butcher shop owner named Hans Hausladen. Her family lost their small fortune during WWII, and her brother and father lost their lives.

After the war, in the early 50s, Elsie met an American soldier from Knoxville, Tennessee who was fluent in German and stationed overseas. They fell in love, married, and soon Elsie gave birth to a healthy baby boy, my father.

Here is Elsie and Roger on their wedding day. I think my father looks so much like her:



Elsie and her son flew to America on her son's first birthday to live in Knoxville with her husband. She spoke very broken English at the time but eventually taught herself the language. Today, almost 57 years later, she still has a German accent and is fun to listen to. Life wasn't easy for Elsie and her family. Having six children living with their parents all in a one-bedroom shack is hardly desirable conditions. However, they made do.

More important than any material wealth, Elsie truly has a heart of gold. She loves her family (all 6 children, 12 grandchildren, and a whole heap of great-grandchildren) and would do anything she could to help anyone out, even if it means she has to sacrifice. She enjoys watching Westerns and listening to Elvis Presley, and she has an amazing green thumb (but only indoors).

When her health was better, she loved cooking. She could cook a mean fried pork chop. And nothing could top her spaghetti with a particular key ingredient - brown sugar. She is well known (in our family at least) for her Alabama cake and potato salad. I have many fond memories of lazing around on a Sunday afternoon after church over at her place after a big meal.

I think back on all the times she kept my brother and me when we were kids, and my parents had somewhere they needed to be. Mom and dad always knew when we were bad while staying with Elsie because, when my parents asked, she would say that we were ''ok'' when we had really behaved horribly (such as the time my brother and me were shoving each other near the top of the stairs and he pushed me down them!). She would never say the truth of how bad we had acted trying to not get us into too much trouble!

My grandmother has always had various health problems, and to be quite honest, I never expected God to allow us so much time with her here on earth. Every day we have been blessed to keep her here has truly been a miracle. I was telling Matt the other day how, in our minds, our loved ones don't age. We forget that they aren't physically the people we remember them being during our childhood. Time does a number on us all. This we all know. I don't know how much time my grandmother has left here with us, but I do know that I will be thankful for every day, week, month, and/or year we have with her. Knowing and loving her has enriched my life because of her example of a kind-hearted, genuine life. And I will do my best to make sure her life and memory live on in her great-granddaughter, Natalie Elisabeth, long after she is gone.