Goodbye, Granny.

Our hearts are heavy this morning as we say goodbye to Granny Bates, my husband's beloved grandmother, who took her leave of this world last night around the same time my kids were enjoying reindeer cookies and A Charlie Brown Christmas on TV. Of her 95 years, 90 were amazingly healthy and full of life, and she leaves a legacy that reaches far beyond the Bates family. Everyone within a 60-mile radius, it seems, knew Granny.

I first met Granny 13 years ago this Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve at Granny's house was famous, for both the abundance of family and food that filled her old white farm house. Just as famous as her hospitality (refusing seconds, or thirds, at her dinner table was simply not an option, so if you came for a meal you'd better have worn loose-fitting pants) was her penchant for sizing you up on the spot. And once she'd formed a verdict, you had precious little opportunity to change her mind.

With that in mind, and knowing I was about to meet one entire branch of my husband's very large family tree, I have to count that Christmas Eve as my most nerve-wracking to date. I came bearing a bribe, er, gift of a poinsettia for Granny, which she immediately proclaimed the prettiest she'd ever seen. I don't know if it was the plant or the fact that I had captured the heart of her grandson, but Granny decided she liked me. And I spent that first Christmas Eve, and every Christmas Eve thereafter until the festivities got to be too much for her to engineer, seated in the dining room at a table full of Bates men. This seating assignment was akin to being situated at the right hand of the king at a medieval feast, as all the other women (at least those who were born or married into the family) shuttled dish after dish of food to the table and ate only after the men, children and, in my case, girlfriends had had their fill.

Even before I did change my status from girlfriend to wife, Granny always told me she loved me. I never felt like an in-law with her, and I, having lost both my grandmothers by the time I was a junior in college, came to love her not as a grandmother-in-law but simply as Granny - outspoken, strong-willed, feisty Granny with a heart big enough to love 13 grandchildren (plus spouses), 23 great-grandchildren and anyone else who had the good fortune to meet her.

My husband and I are lucky to have a daughter who reminds us quite a bit of Granny. At this point, we mostly see the outspoken, strong-willed, feisty side, but even at the tender age of five I see Granny in her when she's hosting a tea party. In her opinion, and I think Granny would agree, there's never a bad time for a celebration, and you simply can't celebrate properly without cloth napkins and enough food and drink to feed the 101st Airborne Division.

I learned of Granny's opinion on cloth napkins when we invited her to accompany my in-laws to our new home for dinner shortly after we got married. Thankfully, I, brimming with wide-eyed newlywed enthusiasm, had pressed a set of cloth napkins for the occasion. And during dinner, Granny turned to me and said, "I just can't stand paper napkins, can you?" While I really do prefer cloth, the reality is my laundry load dictates that we primarily use paper, though I'll always think of Granny when I pull out the cloth napkins for a dinner - or tea - party.

The wonderful memories I have of Granny are only a fraction of my husband's, who spent more than a quarter century living 100 yards away from that old white farmhouse in which so many good times were had. He's regaled me with stories of Friday night slumber parties with his gaggle of cousins. Granny would whip up milk shakes with the cream, yes cream, from the milk cooler at the dairy barn that's provided the financial means for their family since Granny was a wide-eyed newlywed herself, for them to sip on while watching The Dukes of Hazzard. There's even a tale about a ghost who walks the halls of her home wearing a fedora and trench coat. If Granny lived in Tuscaloosa, that house would be a museum by now.

It was stories like these that we shared last night when we got the call from my mother-in-law. We were sad and are sad, and I am trying to think of the right words to use when telling our kids that Granny, whose "front house", the living room replete with antiques and breakables that would she let them have free reign over when we visited, has gone to heaven to be with her husband whom none of us ever met. We will always miss Granny, but we, and so many others, are blessed to have had her for the time we did.