Day by Day with Camille

 (Due to circumstances beyond my control, I was unable to post this entry on March 27th, so am doing so today.) 36 years ago (March 27, 1990) my Grandma Freeman (Veda Corinna Davis Freeman) died due to a stroke. She was 91. It was early in the morning.  The weekend before she died, my Mother and I brought her to our house for the day. My Mother put a permanent into her silver hair, and I painted her fingernails pale shell pink. We had lunch, drank a lot of iced tea with lemon in it, and talked.  At the time of my Grandma's death, my Dad and I had the Towne Flower Shop. My Mother requested a yellow rose casket spray for her. I used 100 yellow roses making it. It was truly my pleasure to create it in her honor.  Something that I had written about her in high school English class, and that was published in a high school literary magazine, was read at her funeral, per her request. It was an essay entitled My Grandmother. I have always thought of it as one of the better t...

 Today is my Grandpa's birthday! This afternoon, I took two wisteria blooms to his grave at Floral Garden Cemetery. The plants they bloomed from were from vines at his Howell's Point Property in coastal NC. I knew that they were the perfect thing to take, that he would have loved that they were from his place.              One of the things that my Grandpa would say is: Live within your means. The thing that I remember about him is his low, warm, rich chuckle of a laughter. It is kind of understated, but it is a rich warm laughter of a life well-lived.  My Grandpa made clay pipes to sell at 9 years old. During the Roaring Twenties he made bath tub gin.  He was a Doughboy in WW1 (the Great War), and he painted in the shipyards in Newport News VA in WW11, until painters' colic sent him home.  He was an amazing gardener. He loved to see things grow. He always had fresh young yellow squash that he gave a youngest granddaughter. He alway...

 At just before sunset, I cut limbs of white dogwood, redbud, azalea, and wisteria and arranged them in a vase on my table! Welcome Spring!