Recalling May in December

It was 30 years ago today we lost my paternal grandmother, my dad’s mom, Mary Ellen Harvey Ennis. Most folks called her “May,” but I called her “Momma,” apparently because I babbled that to her as an infant.

When she died, she was 81, but for almost all of her final years, she didn’t know me or anyone, and I’m not even sure if she knew herself.

She’d spent her last decade in nursing homes, suffering from dementia that robbed her of everything but her smile.

We were always very close. But time was not kind. She came here from Ireland as an exile, fell…