Last December 16th I posted about my grandmother, who turned 100 on that day.  Today is exactly six months later, and I got word this morning that she passed away around 8:00 am.  Her only surviving son, Boyce Wilson, was with her when she died.   She passed away peacefully.

She had been suffering from poor circulation in her leg, which had allowed an infection to develop.  The doctors had suggested amputating the leg, but because of her age she and the family decided against it.

I last saw her three weeks ago when I took a trip to TN to visit my mother.  We went over to NC to visit Edna in her nursing home.  She was very frail and her foot was hurting her quite a bit, but she was still very alert.  She had been moved into a nursing home just last year.  Other than clothes, she had very few of her own things with her.  But one thing she made sure she had with her was her Bible, which was sitting by her bedside.

One thing I always remember from my childhood is that she always read her Bible in the morning (which for her started around 5:00 am).  Her Bible always had the Sunday School quarterly in it.  And the first time I ever read Isaiah and Jeremiah straight through was when I was spending two weeks with her one summer.  I was in high school and he just saved up enough money to buy my own NIV, and I made it my summer project to read the major prophets.  I remember sitting at her table and reading the Bible while she did the same.

It is amazing how much this woman knew about the Bible.  One Christmas, someone got me a Bible trivia game.  While I was at Edna’s house for our family Christmas gathering, we sat down to play it.  The rest of use were playing the game on teams.  Edna wasn’t playing, but every now and then she would pass through the room.  When she did, we would ask her a question, which she invariably answered correctly.  Eventually, we put a token on the board for her.  Even though she was on a team by herself and did not get questions as often as the rest of us, she won by a large margin.

I encourage you to read the post from last December when I gave an account of her life.  She was a wonderful woman and a strong Christian.  She will be greatly missed and fondly remembered.

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