By Karen McNew
WSLS10 Anchor
Published: April 23, 2008

I am new to posting pictures so bear with me a little for a couple of days please…

With the return of some sunshine today I couldn’t help but take a picture of the azaleas outside our house… I know they are a popular shrub but I have written so much in different articles over the last year about the memorial to my Grandma Davidson who passed away from Alzheimer’s a little more than a year ago that I wanted to show some pictures of the first blooming of the plants all together… I planted the white azalea the Easter Sunday after she died… I knew the others were a bright pink and wanted the one for her to stand out… there happened to be a break in the line of them outside our house… I’m not sure why but it seemed to be a fitting way to honor one of the greatest women I have ever known…

A couple from our church had given me a gift certificate to a local shop that carries plants and told me to buy something to plant in her memory… I bought several shrubs but there are two that are particularly special - the white azalea and a bleeding heart bush in the back yard… I will take a picture of it for a future posting…

The bleeding heart is special because it was her favorite flower… the white azalea is special because it symbolizes her is so many ways… she had such a hardworking, kind and pure spirit…

She worked until she was 80 years old… when the Alzheimer’s took over she had to stop… she never had a mean or harsh word for anyone...I never heard her raise her voice… she would say I love all people I just don’t always like their ways… and her biggest vice was potato chips and cheese bread… never smoked or drank alcohol in her life… I know that life is a cycle that ends for all of us… but I still miss her… there are just some people who have been such a special part of your life that even as time passes a tear still forms when you talk or think about him or her…