Farewell and adieu to you, Granny Jane

I share here the eulogy I delivered at the memorial service for my granny, Jane Walker Trammell, who was born April 4, 1926 and died October 11, 2024. Being her granddaughter was one of the greatest joys of my life, and since I am a new mom, her eulogy is one of the only things I’ve written in the last six months that’s worth reading. I don’t normally believe in heaven, but I have a renewed interest in the idea, in hopes of seeing Granny Jane again.

When I called Granny Jane in the summer of 2015 and told her I was considering moving to Key West, she said I better hurry up, because she was about to turn 90 and might die soon. This brief conversation so captured the essence of Granny Jane: frank, funny, unsentimental, and enthusiastic for what was next. She embodied that great quote from “The Shawshank Redemption”: It comes down to a simple choice, really: get busy living or get busy dying. And until the very end of her long life, Granny Jane got busy living.

After that phone conversation, I packed my bags in New York and moved to Key West to live with grandmother from 2015-2019. Those were four of the happiest years of my life, and in her telling, hers too.

Granny Jane was my mom Lisa’s mom. She was an extraordinary grandmother to me, my sister Rachel, and our cousins, Andrew, Alex, Rebecca and Charlie.

All of my cousins recalled how fun she was as a grandmother, ready to get down in the dirt and play, or make us a fancy tea party with grape juice in tiny dessert wine glasses. She was just as happy to sit at the kids’ table as the adult table. She was unbothered by scraped knees and adamant that we shouldn’t indulge self-pity – Alex recalled a story of her being almost eerily unphased when his dad, Uncle Brian, fell out of a tree and broke his collar bone. Part of this was her pragmatic nature, and part was probably her medical training. Alex went on to write: “She had a confidence in herself that I find remarkable. Maybe it came from being the daughter of a doctor and going on to be one of the first women in medical school. Or maybe it wouldn't have mattered what she chose to do in life.” 

As the only woman in her class at Vanderbilt Medical School, she told us kids stories from those days with a smile, and we listened transfixed, imagining our granny as a hundred-pound twenty-something tackling autopsies with the same gusto we saw her tackling an opponent on the tennis court. It wasn’t hard to imagine – I remember looking at the photo of the class of 1949 and easily picking out Granny Jane – not only because hers was the only female face, but the only smiling face among her dour male counterparts.

In my 20s, I sort of held it against Granny Jane that she chose to marry granddad and raise children instead of trailblazing and finishing med school. But as a woman in middle age, I see the wisdom in following her heart, forging a path that she never regretted, and not allowing ego or the absence of an impressive diploma to impede her true desires. She did, however, graduate from university at Ole Miss, a distinction she loved sharing with her eldest grandson Andrew, and was known for in Key West – a few fellow alumni would even holler “Hotty Toddy!” at her as she sat on the front porch.

Despite living a life that may have appeared traditional from the outside, Jane was quite unconventional – even defiant – if you looked more closely. Becca shared that she “absolutely loved that Granny Jane stopped cooking when Granddad retired! Lots of people have stories about their grandmothers teaching them to cook, but we have none… I never missed it because it allowed her to spend time with us instead of in the kitchen cooking. She was always so interested in our lives and we in hers.” Charlie added that granddad used to tease her for still having a full plate at the end of the meal, because she was too busy with the conversation.

Indeed, Granny Jane was a great student of life and the people she loved. She prioritized her own happiness, something I think can be hard for women, especially of her generation. A tour of her house in Key West reveals brightly painted signs that made her outlook clear. A few of my favorites are: “I only have a kitchen because it came with the house” and “A woman’s place is on the tennis court.” During the years that I lived with her, her home, her face, and her spirit were etched on my heart. We shared meals, bike rides, long conversations on the porch, Blue Bloods marathons, laughter, tears, and the joy of living. When I tended bar at the beachfont restaurant a couple blocks from her house, she regularly came and sat at the bar, even though she never had a sip of alcohol in her life. 

She was a woman who, like her adopted hometown of Key West, marched to the beat of a different drummer. My sister Rachel recalls finding Granny Jane, then in her 90s, at the top of a ladder, cleaning a gutter. I remember mom scolding her for eating her Blizzard with one hand while riding her bike home from Dairy Queen. Jane responded the same way both times: “What’s the worst that could happen, I die?”

Her irreverence about death was striking. She appeared fearless about the end of life well into her 90s. I remember accompanying Granny Jane to the graveside service of a dear friend in the Key West cemetary. Bill was the longtime owner of the Carriage Trade restaurant, the site of many family gatherings including granny and granddad’s 50th anniversary dinner. At the end of the service, each of us was invited to toss a handful of dirt into the grave. As soon as the dirt left Jane’s outstretched palm, she wiped her hand on her shorts and turned to me: “Now, where are we going to lunch?”

Rachel recalled driving Granny Jane back home after Granddad’s memorial service. On the drive, granny talked about how strange it would be to go on living without granddad. She explained that she had moved in with him straight from having college roommates, just as she had moved in with college roommates straight from the home of her parents. “What’s it like to live alone?” she asked her granddaughter with curiosity. Rachel said they talked the gamut from managing loneliness to calling the electrician (or more likely Uncle Bert).

I’ll never forget one afternoon on Johnson Street when I was sitting in a lawn chair on the back patio crying. I had recently gone through a difficult breakup. Jane walked outside, looked at me, and sat down.  

“Sarah,” she said, “The car doesn’t look like it’s been wrecked.”

“No.”

“Is there a cancer diagnosis I don’t know about?”

“No.”

“Then what are you crying about?”

“I’m sad about breaking up with my boyfriend,” I said.

“That was a month ago!” Jane countered.

“Well, granny, sometimes, there are things that take longer than a month to get over being sad about.”

She paused and then said: “I know what you mean. I feel that way about Brian.”

Of course, in the moment, I felt like an idiot, but I know she was just being honest.

The only time I saw Jane’s heart really break was when Uncle Brian died. I remember she walked the neighborhood for hours but could not outpace the pain of losing her son. But seeing her son’s children grow up and have kids of their own was one of the greatest joys of her life. She always bragged to her Key West tennis ladies about her six grandchildren and her five – and eventually six - great granddaughters.

Before she died, I got to introduce her to Lucas, her only great grandson, who, with his big blue eyes, has more than a passing resemblance to baby pictures of Uncle Brian. “I just can’t believe it,” she kept saying with a smile. I knew what she meant – that for years she listened to me talk about my desire to start a family of my own. When I met my future husband and moved to Switzerland, I was so sad to leave her, but she was happy for me to go. And there she was, finally holding my baby. It was a sight I will treasure for the rest of my life.

At the end, her happiness lay mostly in visits from her dedicated children – Carmen, Burt, Lisa, and by extension, my dad and Aunt Zayna. She knew what mattered, and didn’t waste time on the stuff that didn’t. That does assume we all agree that adhering to the rules on the tennis court is also stuff that matters.

Granny Jane was a kind of superwoman in my life, and I am eternally grateful that I didn’t just get to be her granddaughter, but her friend. I hope I can learn to live by her example: to brood less, to play more, to wear life like a loose garment, keep things in perspective, express gratitude, prioritize happiness, order dessert, and keep it moving. She was a woman who mastered something incredibly rare: she loved life with her whole heart, but she didn’t begrudge it for ending. As the pillow on her bed in Key West reads: “Life is a beautiful ride.”

… Now, where are we going to lunch?