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05/04/2005: "Ila Fern"

My paternal grandmother, Ila Fern (Harker) Thompson, passed away this afternoon at 2:06pm. She turned 93 last November.

I was alone in the house with her when it finally happened. Her two children (my father and aunt) and I had stayed with her through the night. Being the night-owl of the family, I pulled most of the early morning hours, holding her hand and talking to her while she labored to breathe. Both my father and aunt had left to run errands when it came, and when it came, it was peaceful. She just stopped breathing, and then her heart stopped beating.

Born in Shelly, Id in 1911, she was a red-haired, basketball playing spitfire. She would still shoot the occasional basket well into her 70s, too. When you stop to think that she was never taller than 5'2", and that sports weren't a big part of a girls life in the 1920s, this is rather remarkable. (At least I find it so.) During the time I knew her (she was 50 when I was born), she was always her own person.

She saw the roaring 20s, the depression, WWII, and all the rest in her life. Her father turned his buggy business into the first Ford dealership in Northern Idaho (apparently Ila would "borrow" a car off the lot occasionally to take a joyride.)

With the death of my mother in March, 2003, Ila was the woman I've known longest in this life. She's always been my favorite example of a strong woman who was also full of life and humor.

When I was out here in Las Vegas in March, my father asked her what she wanted to do that afternoon. Her response was, "rob a bank". She was kidding, of course.

I'll miss her.