Mildred Oakley 12/02/1919 - 09/28/2005

Just a personal note today to honor the memory of my Grandma Mildred, who passed away from a major stroke on September 28. I saw her just about a month ago and she was looking and feeling good. We spoke on the phone a week before her death and she was coming around to the idea of moving up to the Bay Area to be closer to the rest of our family. Her death was not at all expected, and I've been grieving her deeply.

Grandma was born in 1919 in the dustbowl of Oklahoma. Her family basically lived the "Grapes of Wrath," moving to Southern California in search of work to survive the Great Depression. When her family relocated back to Oklahoma more than a decade later, she opted to stay put and, at the tender age of 19, married my grandfather Luther. With him she had two children (my mom and Uncle Frank, who lives here in the Bay Area) and lived in a track home in the then-newly established LA suburb of Sun Valley. Without a high school diploma, she landed a job as a catalog phone rep for Sears, where she worked for over 30 years.

After years in an unsatisfying marriage, she divorced Luther. In the early 60s, she remarried my step grandfather Jim, now the only living grandparent out of the five with which I was blessed at birth. Together they moved to California's Central Valley, where they lived in a ranch house on a 10-acre raisin grape farm that I've visited countless times since my early childhood. They lived there together until just recently when she moved into a nursing home after a series of small strokes.

We'd become close, my grandma and me, especially since my mother's death in 1998. It's inconceivable to me the pain of losing a child, and I think when my mom left, a piece of my grandma left with her. Through long conversations late into the night at the kitchen table, we grieved together and developed our own trust and deep bond. She had so many stories, so much wisdom to share. I loved her very much and will miss her sweetness, her wit, her no-nonsense honesty. Oh, and her lemon merengue pie.

Rest well grandma. You were loved.