Evelyn P Addison

Evelyn Addison, world-class chef, natty dresser and lifelong friend took a trip up to Heaven just in time for Thanksgiving. The doctors said Evelyn's heart had gotten tired from loving, but those closest to her and familiar with her Southern fare know that God was simply in the mood for an exceptional pan of macaroni and cheese and a pecan pie that would fill even the folks at Priester's down in Montgomery with envy. Evelyn's family and friends are thankful for a lifetime of wisdom and love that she imparted from her kitchen window while shelling beans and baking pies, and from her living room rocker where she sang grand babies, now grown, to sleep. In a lifetime she walked thousands of miles over exactly 40 square feet of kitchen space that she cursed and loved, cooked dinners for people who could and couldn't do for themselves and boiled fields of potatoes for the best homemade soup that would spoil her adoring granddaughters for life. Even as they sat on the floor as little girls, fascinated with their own toes, Evelyn's granddaughters would learn about the beauty and the elegance that radiated deep from within their grandmother, much deeper than the Elizabeth Arden cherry red lipstick she would paint on or the porcelain powder she would dust on her cheeks each morning. Without them having known, her life lived in quiet and humble service to others would teach them the difference between pretty and beautiful, although their grandmother was both, all the time, every time. Without using any words, she taught that beautiful was something anybody could be by loving others well, which she did all the time, every time. She believed ugly was a way you acted, not a way you looked. She believed family was the greatest gift in all the world, that God was good all the time, and that it was just as easy to marry a rich man as it was a poor one. She believed in holding hands while crossing the street (especially when traffic was 'a-runnin-thick'), making lemonade when Southern summers rendered you 'wet with sweat', threatening to get, but never actually gettin’, the hickory after unruly younguns, goin’ when she was ready and that sprinkling cheese on anything, be it lettuce or canned pairs would automatically make it "a salad." Now 25 and 30, and in a world where it's increasingly popular for women to treat themselves cheaply, to settle, to not know their worth, Evelyn's granddaughters are especially privileged and thankful that she modeled what it meant to be a strong, dignified woman whose every action emanated the intrinsic worth and value she knew she had, dependent on no one's affirmation, validation or approval. She had very simple taste, in that she was always satisfied with the very best. She was a lesson in duality; she kept a pistol on her nightstand, next to pretty flowers and bottles of delicate perfume. She operated under the authority of Shoot First, Question Later, which almost resulted in the untimely demises of a very unsuspecting UPS man and a family friend, Freddie, who was at first unrecognizable to her when he once, and only once, came knocking. Masterfully, she balanced being a kind and servant wife and mother with being a confident, independent and ferociously passionate woman. Evelyn is survived by her husband, Murphy, who paid a minister $10 in 1954 to marry them. Sixty years later he will still tell you it was the best ten dollars he ever spent, even when their days of going to the car races on Friday nights, going on cross-country adventures and dancing the Tennessee Waltz faded into Evelyn hanging up her impossibly high heels, growing too fragile to make her own bed, open her own Coke for breakfast, or button her own fleece nightgowns with the little flowers on them. Murphy made her bed meticulously each morning, tucked the pink sheets tight into their corners. He would have a tab popped on a Coke for her before she even had time to slip into a seat at the blue breakfast table they shared, and still one of the sweetest sights their granddaughter will ever see is a vision of her grandpa, eyes squinted and vision failing, stooped over the bed with fingers working carefully, patiently; aiming to get the buttons through the holes on her grandma's fleece nightgowns, the ones with the little flowers on them. Murphy and Evelyn didn't just make a great couple; they made an amazing team. He retrieved the bills from the mailbox when she could no longer get around real good, and she stroked the checks when he could no longer see where to start the M in his signature, or tell a 50 from a 1. They modeled the interdependence and sacrificial love that has grown scarce in a society that wants all of the butterflies and none of the commitment. They demonstrated that love was not something that just happened to you by pure luck, like a 9th piece of chicken in an 8-piece box. It was not a feeling you got, or even something you fell into. It was a choice you made, every day, and like all good things worth having, something you worked hard at, and something that just grew better over time. Together they raised one son, Mike, and because she was a praying woman, she survived his boyhood; fraught with creepy crawly things, BB guns, motorcycles and everything else that goes fast, stinks or leaves tracks in the mud. She made sure he was always dressed to the nines, had manners, knew how to stand up for himself and would grow up to be an excellent daddy. She succeeded wildly on every account, although she may have lost a little hair and gained a few more wrinkles along the way. When they listen to Loretta Lynn, her granddaughters are certain they don't make men like their daddy any more, mainly because they don't make women like their grandmother anymore. Although she will be fiercely missed on Earth, Evelyn's loved ones are rejoicing that she is restored to her vibrant, fiery self, is reunited with the family that went before her (especially her beloved sisters) and is dancing on the streets of gold. We are looking forward to seeing her again soon, whether it is tomorrow, next year or in a hundred more. In heaven it will have only be an instant, for she is in the eternal now. We know she will be there to welcome us with open arms, fix us something to eat and invite us in to stay and rock for a while.