Tribute

George "Sparky" Anderson died Thursday. If you have even a lay person's knowledge of baseball — or live in Cincinnati — you know the man.

Three overall World Series titles; a baseball hall of famer.

Yeah, you get the drift.

He died from complications due to dementia. A horrible malady that strikes the mind, rendering you unable to remember how to chew, swallow, move...

This tribute is not to George Anderson.

It is to a woman many of you do not know. A woman who is facing the very same situation as Anderson, in fact, was lying in her deathbed in a Columbus, Ohio hospital just last week.

Her esophagus punctured from swallowing a chicken bone she had forgotten about.

No IV or feeding tube was inserted for her. She was moved to the hospice unit of the hospital in order to be "made comfortable."

Doctors gave her no more than two weeks to live. Doctors, like weather forecasters, are right a vast majority of the time.

As of this writing, 79-year-old Mary Jane Teague (nee Johnson) sits in a Columbus nursing home. She has a soft food diet in order to prevent damaging her freshly healed esophagus.

Mary Jane has around the clock care now, something her family had been discussing for a while, yet now has been forced to provide.

She's in good spirits, given her travails of the previous weeks. She is maintaining her sense of humor and stubbornness, refusing to wave a white flag.

In fact, she had enough piss and vinegar left in her veins to tell a nurse she "doesn't have any vitals" when the nurse entered the room to check them.

Mary Jane can be one tough old bird.

I love her with every ounce of my soul.

My grandmother was a mysterious sort to me as a child. She was not overly friendly to my siblings and I.

She seemed more focused on the adults when we would visit, chatting with them while admonishing us for interrupting conversation or making noise.

In addition, she had absolutely no toys or items of intrigue in her home for children. The place was a museum — shelves of books on religion and war, collectible owls and WWII miniatures of my grandfather.

Instead of driving us away with her aloofness — making us distant and cold towards her — it gave us a drive to achieve adulthood.

To finally chat with Grandma and to be taken seriously.

We all longed to reach our 21st birthday, not to be able to legally drink in a bar but to finally toss back a Busch Light with Mary Jane.

Once you earned that mantle of adulthood, Mary Jane rewarded you with her unwavering support.

At times when my choice of joining the military was quite unpopular with family, she was in my corner.

When my choice of becoming a writer was questioned, she was in my corner.

And upon visiting, I'd be greeted with the biggest smile, a warm embrace and enough flattery to make me feel like the best thing since, well, the last time she had seen me.

Handwritten letters while I was in basic training.

The Ohio State Marching Band concerts the Sunday's before meeting Michigan in "The Game."

A Columbus Clipper minor league baseball game, made memorable by my intoxicated aunt actually getting into a shouting match with the first base umpire.

Teague family reunions in Toledo.

All memories that I wouldn't have had, if not for Mary Jane.

I stood at her side two Monday's ago, blubbering uncontrollably. Telling her she was the matriarch of our family; that she was the greatest grandmother a boy could have.

Tears moistened my shirt.

I told her that we all loved her and that she had done enough for us — it was now time to relax.

Reassured her that she had earned heaven through her faith and acts.

Without a doubt, I was saying my last goodbyes to her.

And she asked me, in a quiet rasp, what she had done to deserve this love.

I explained that it was from her just being herself.

Had I heeded my words, I would have known that she was going to pull herself up on the ring ropes and only be counted to eight.

She's still standing and still fighting, not ready to relinquish the title of Columbus's most fervent supporter of owls.

I felt like a heel for putting her in the grave early.

Yet I feel more blessed that I can stand in her corner, one time, for her.

Much like she did for me.

This is a tribute to Mary Jane Teague (nee Johnson).

Wife, sister, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.

And one damned tough old bird.

We love you, Grandma.

Your beloved grandson,
Jim