Roy Exum
About a month before Fran Simmons died last week, she was sharing a quiet moment with one of her grandsons when McKittrick, now a successful investment banker in Atlanta, asked the 92-year-old matriarch if there was anything else about life the two of them should talk about.
Fran, who had 13 grandchildren and adored them all, had spent over a quarter of a century having deep conversations with McKittrick and his siblings, this after their father Greg was tragically killed on a family outing in North Carolina back in 1988, and the bond between her grandchildren was evermore unbreakable.
So when McKittrick shared one of his last conversations with his grandmother before her body was interred at the National Cemetery yesterday morning, his listeners leaned in closely.
At first she said, no, that they’d talked about just about everything imaginable in the 26 years since Greg was swept away in a fast-moving and unforgiving river, but after a pause Fran said there was something she wanted her grandson to know that maybe she’d never told him.
“When your father died, it was the single worst thing that ever happened to me in my life,” her heavy words echoing the greatest fear of any parents. “I was mad, bitter, and heartbroken,” McKittrick recalled her telling him from her sick bed. “But in the middle of my grief I forced myself to make a huge decision. I realized I needed to replace my anger with gratitude…If I didn’t, grief and sorrow would encompass me.
“That is a very hard thing to do but instead of being bitter, I began to be grateful for all the blessings God has given to me. I still had a wonderful family, with five children that Greg and Christie had brought into the world. I realized I should be thankful for Greg’s life and for all that he accomplished, and how blessed we were that he would be reflected in his children’s faces forever.”
As McKittrick shared the last lesson his grandmother taught him, the pavilion at the National Cemetery was filled mostly by family members, each so obviously proud of the way their “Nana” had influenced their lives by being so very grateful they were part of her life.
Later in the day, when a memorial service was held at the Lookout Mountain Presbyterian Church, Greg’s brothers and sister shared in eulogizing the most triumphant woman who championed them for a lifetime. They told funny stories and recalled happy moments but son Forrest struck a resonate cord when he shared the ancient proverb that only when your second parents die do you know what it is to finally become an adult.
Fran’s husband Mitch died seven years ago and it wasn’t lost on anyone that Fran’s “trick,” having learned to replace grief with gratitude some 20 years before, enabled her to quickly forge ahead and enjoy a tribe of great grandchildren who were rapidly coming into the world.
“Mother was a trailblazer who had it all – a deep abiding faith, a successful career as a business owner, and family she adored and countless friends – but she never saw herself as remarkable,” her daughter Barbara told me last week. “She just loved life.”
To be candid, I knew this to be true on a personal stage. Fran and my late mother were the closest of friends and many a night, during the last six years I lived with mother to fulfill a pledge that I would never put her in a nursing home, the three of us shared countless meals and joyful conversation.
My mother died about six weeks before Fran did and in recent weeks Forrest had asked his mother who she wanted to see first in heaven, thinking the answer would be Greg or his father. Fran surprised everyone but family members when she answered, “Helen Exum … she’ll catch me up on the gossip!” Lordy, what a pair those two were.
And what a blessing Fran Simmons was in all the years I knew her. For this I am grateful.
royexum@aol.com