So the beginning...

This is a story that begins like non-fiction... and the ending (tho' it's not yet ended) could rival a fiction story. It begins oh-so mundane and so loving, and in the last chapters it's horrific. I wish I could write a story like this - but the reader would think that it is too tragic and I wouldn't sell any books. This story is insane - I am living it and MomMaw died by it.


My grandmother, Glenna Mae Adkins, was born and bred in West-by-God Virginia. A true southern lady - she had manners, a sense of propriety, all of the old-fashioned theories that most Southern women of the Depression Era held in common.


Long story short - I was raised by MomMaw most of my young years, and in teen years too. She was my mom in the truest sense of the word. Because of a troubled family, we had a bond that was granddaughter/grandma, child/mom, confidant/counselor. I just looked through a box of letters I've kept since the 80's, and she wrote me a letter at least once a month (and when I was young and poor she sent $50 a month - religiously - and apologized when it was a couple of days late!) Even when I didn't need the money any more, she sent it anyway and told me to use it on my daughter.

After I moved to Florida in 1987, I went home every year to visit. And West Virginia has always seemed like home - the flat expanses and even the beaches of Florida can't compare with WV's rolling mountains, the quiet forests, the palettes of trees that were painted by God. Every year - by air then later by car (it's a helluva drive - I have no sense of direction and somehow seem to get lost every damn trip). I went in the summer - a couple of years we went twice a year for Thanksgiving - and it recharged my soul to be home in the mountains and HOME with MomMaw.

So when she was troubled, I turned to West Virginia to help. The Senior Citizen's agency, the courthouse, her bank, the police - state and county, anyone who was supposed to be looking after an elderly person. No dice. From anywhere. They turned their backs on her and now ignore her existence. The one true person in my life, the constant, my heart - and they screwed her.