Letter from the editor: I’ll tell you all about her

By Courtney Warren

I believe it was a year ago when I last wrote about my grandmother. She is my favorite lady, and I still have the opportunity to tell her that, only it looks a little different now. 

She’s been in a nursing home for a few years, and, with that in mind, my mom and grandfather asked that I come to the family home in Albany to help go through her things. 

We spent a week looking through treasures. See, my grandmother kept absolutely everything. She had clothes that she was wearing in photos of me learning to walk, she has shoes that my mom wore in high school, and every single letter we ever wrote to her. And the jewelry, oh man. Six drawers of jewelry, and then we turned around only to find more hanging in one of her closets. 

The week was pretty emotional for my mom because, while my grandmother is still living, she’s not the Grammy we have always known. Several times as we went through items, I turned to find mom with quiet tears rolling down her face. She’d quickly wipe them away, as to not make my grandfather sad; but through all of this, we encouraged her to tell us the stories. Grammy doesn’t have a single item that doesn’t include a story. 

I was lucky enough to have my best friend travel with me, so, when the days got too hard for my mom, Lindsay and I sat alone on the plushy carpet as we went through old letters and cards. Grammy loved a good card. She had hundreds of them packed away, empty and ready to send to us. She took notes during her phone calls, so she’d be able to easily recall conversations. While they weren’t journal entries, they felt like them, and I cherished every time I saw my name written in her cursive. 

The next day, we found another box, but this was even older than the others. In it were love letters between her and my grandfather, acceptance letters to colleges I never knew she applied to, and newspaper clippings from all over the South as she toured during her pageant days. For the first time, I was getting to truly see evidence of all of the stories she told me. 

I knew I worshipped her, but I was seeing how she was adored by so many that came before me–and for good reason. 

There is a song that played over and over in my head throughout the week. I didn’t dare play it around my mom, but, when I was safe in the car with just my best friend to see, I played it at full volume. 

There’s a particular kind of heartbreak that comes when someone you love slowly fades before your eyes—not because they’ve left this world, but because a part of them is slipping away. This song captures that feeling with stunning tenderness. It’s written like a love letter to someone who no longer remembers who they used to be. The lyrics reflect on old stories once told a hundred times, on the light they used to carry, and on the pain of watching that light dim. Still, there’s hope woven in, too—a promise to remember, to remind, and to keep telling their story, even when they can’t. 

I wanted to share some of the lines with you:
Fought one hell of a fight, lived one hell of a life/You always lit a room, now the light has gone with you/You might not recognize her, staring in the mirror/But I’ll tell you all about her.

How do you take someone so big, so bright, so full of life, and put all of that magic into the contents of a plastic tub? How do you close the pages of a scrapbook and tuck it away knowing it contains over 75 years of joy, heartache, and someone who is tough as nails but was always still the most graceful one in the room? 

Time and time again I found notes she’d written for my mother: “Laura, you are our pride and joy.” We made a pile of them for my mom to read later. 
When I tuck my daughter in at night, I say the same things to her. 

“You’re my sweetheart. You’re my pride and joy.” But instead of hugging me and saying she loves me, she’s always repeated it back to me. “Mommy, you’re my sweetheart. You’re my pride and joy.” 

Her phrases are still being spoken, even if she isn’t the one to speak them. Cherry Fortenberry Davis. She’s my pride and joy. And, even though she may not recognize herself, I am happy to tell you all about her.