Saturday, January 13, 2024
One of my favorite memories with Lady was when I was around 8 or 9. She and Johnny, our I as affectionately call him - John John, came to babysit Abbey and I. All four of us sat on the couch together after dinner and decided to watch a movie. We picked Freaky Friday with Jamie Lee Curtis. I have never seen someone laugh so hard in my life as Lady did watching that movie. Her face was the shade of beet red and she was gasping for breath. We all stopped watching the movie to watch her watch it. We were all laughing along with her, not because of the silly antics of Lindsey Lohan, but because it was more fun to see how much Lady enjoyed the film.
I have many other memories of Lady. Her picking me up from school and making my favorite after school snack - block cheese sandwiches. I even have the scar on my knee as a mento for one of those school picks, the time I fell on the concrete, after over zealously trying to run into Lady’s arms. I was so excited, because I didn’t realize she was picking me up. (That fall ruined one of her golf towels.) I fondly recall Johnny and Lady taking me to get peach ice cream from a local peach vendor in Barnesville and having slices of the peach bread, from that same vendor, on mornings after sleepovers. I remember playing in their pool with Lady telling me to practice my sycronize swimming how she swam “back in the day.” I recall her reminding me, “ladies swim with their head ABOVE the water” in an over exaggerated, posh tone that would make us both giggle. I remember nights full of Big Chick fried chicken and dinner rolls (the BEST dinner rolls I’ve had to date), and days when Lady and Johnny came to watch mine and Abbey’s tennis matches and my cross country meets. I got my best times when they came to watch me run. And I’ll always remember every Thanksgivings and Christmas’ shared together. I was an overly excitable kid, especially when it came to Christmas, and Lady would always empathize with me by telling me that she would get so excited as a child at Christmas that she would throw up upon seeing the bounty of presents under the tree (thankfully I never got that excited).
Lady was a brilliant, kind hearted person that loved her people fiercely! I will miss her always.
