My Crazy Family: Grandmother Read

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Let's get one thing straight before I go any further down this road. When I write the adjective "crazy" in the phrase "My Crazy Family," I am in fact speaking only of my nuclear family: my parents and siblings. However, I am not going to start a separate column called "My Extended Family" just to illustrate the finer points of the family tree. My grandmother is family, but she is not crazy, nor is the grandmother I mentioned in the previous blog column. They have played their roles in the raising of my parents, but I am largely unaware of the precise details of their influence. Bottom line, they're family, so they get lumped up with all the rest of us nuts.
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Today, my parents and I drove up to Austin to visit my grandmother, uncle, and aunt from the DFW area. They met us halfway. In a few days, my grandmother will turn 95, and the family is both thrilled and impressed. I bet she is, too.
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Grandmother Read is still entirely self-sufficient. She lives alone and takes care of her basic needs, such as cooking, cleaning, and paying the bills. She drives to the store and to church, though I do wonder about her behind the wheel. Her car which she purchased in the 1980s barely has 30,000 miles on it.
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Grandmother doesn't talk a whole lot. The conversation at the lunch table passed mainly between the two husband-wife pairs and me. When the food came out, it was entertaining to see my dad and uncle fuss over my grandma's food, making sure she had what she wanted on her plate and a little extra. She ate for the most part in silence.
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Our visit lasted just over two hours. The above picture was taken while things were winding down, and we were smiling and laughing about little nothings. I caught her in a quirky pre-smile pose, about to laugh but perhaps holding it back for the seriousness of the photo shoot. So often, my grandma is reserved, quiet, almost invisible to the hubbub of family action, but this is how I prefer to think of her, as a woman who occasionally lets the little girl of her youth bubble to the surface and spill over for the world to see.
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Happy Birthday, Grandma.