“Your sister just called. Something happened to your grandma this morning. They think she had a stroke and she’s on her way to the hospital.” My husband’s brother whispered to me in the lobby outside the sanctuary, after taking a phone call from someone in my family. “What?! Are you sure? Don’t you mean my Grandpa!?” I pelted him with questions. “Yeah, it was Grandma. She’s in good hands though. I’ll tell Steve and go get the kids.” Suddenly, my morning went from the rush of getting our family to church, to sitting peacefully engrossed in the message, to the tap on my shoulder that changed my life in a way I wouldn’t understand for years. My mind was a runaway freight train. Grandma’s life flashed before my eyes in vibrant glimmers of memory-snapshots cascading. A flickering old movie projector rolling through my mind on the silent 30-minute drive to the hospital. My husband just held my hand knowing that talking might cause me to melt into an oblivion of tears. He had to have meant my Grandpa, I kept thinking. He’d just celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday a few days earlier and most of us had lost count of the heart attacks he’d suffered the last twenty years. But as far as I knew Grandma was a picture of good health in spite of her extra weight. Her Southern cookin’ was incurable. The ceramic crock of solidified bacon grease that always stood guard on her stove was the go-to-ingredient for all Arkansas cuisine. “Chocolate ‘n Biscuits” was the affectionate nickname we had given her sweet and savory breakfast meal of made-from-scratch buttermilk biscuits, creamy chocolate gravy and crispy bacon. It would seem that the enjoyment of this culinary treat was a genetic trait. Those who married into the family almost always preferred sausage gravy for their biscuits, so the requisite amount was provided for these conscientious objectors. The rest of us dove head first into the chocolate and came up fat and sassy! As much as the morning’s announcement had made my blood run cold, I was warmed by the wonderful memories replaying in my mind-of Grandma’s peculiarities and quirks, areas where she struggled, of family traditions-all the things that made her who she was in my mind. All the ways I’d enjoyed her for all my 28 years. The memory reel in my mind was my prayer, begging God for more time, more memories, more Grandma. My earliest memory of our trips to visit Grandma and Grandpa when they lived in Arkansas was the time that I found my way into the shed where Grandpa kept the bikes he’d gotten out of trash piles to fix up and sell. I found one that fit me just right, jumped on, pedaled to the top of the hill and raced down like the wind! I wasn’t all that familiar with this pure unadulterated joy and freedom, but it was exhilarating! That is until about a hundred yards before the big curve at the end of the road where I discovered why that old bike was still in the shed instead of the end of the driveway with a for-sale sign. No matter how hard I spun backwards on those pedals or how tightly I squeezed the handlebars that bike had no idea how desperately I wanted to stop. I had to think fast! My seven-year-old mind formulated a plan to gently skid my feet along the street to slow to a stop. I know now that a better option was riding off into a yard to let the soft earth cushion the blow. But who needs hindsight when you have a family full of people who are more than willing to tell you what you shoulda’ done the moment you come crying for consolation? But I didn’t have the luxury of hindsight or a tender adult offering curbside advice. I had only me, a runaway bike and about five seconds to decide how to save my life. My plan might’ve worked except that surging adrenaline caused me to slap, rather than slide, my feet onto the pavement. Several flips later, I lay in the street with a huge scrape on my knee-the scar’s still there to remind me. I saw that bent-up bike and tears poured. Hobbling back to the house, I sought comfort. It’s more likely that I was yelled at by Grandpa for wrecking his bike, and shamed, if not belt-whipped, by my father for not asking permission, or for just being a dumb kid. Though memory doesn’t serve me well, I like to imagine Grandma fussing over me to get me bandaged up and quieted down. My clear remembrance of her care for my own kids years later enables this comforting vision. Grandma did love to fuss though. At everyone, and everything. She fussed at me and all my cousins for all our rough-housin’ and horseplay. She fussed at the television when Victor and Nikki were once again in trouble on The Young and the Restless. She fussed at herself every Christmas morning when, to her annual amazement, she once again had not prepared