letter to G- October

Dear G, OCTOBER
Today is a beautiful fall day in October. I know you would like the weather we have been having here. Not too hot, not too cold and just perfect enough for a light sweater or sweat shirt. Lately, I have really missed you. I long for our conversations and chats and I miss your wisdom! Our Warrior will have been actively serving his mission for almost a month now. I know you would share how proud you are of him, and your recollections of when the missionaries would visit you and how nice you thought they all were. I wanted to know how you handled your ache when you had your first son leave home to serve in the war, and I wanted you to share with me how you ever survived when you had your second son, leave home to serve in that same war? I wish I had listened more intently to those stories when Gramps would share what it was like when your third and last son would be called out and how he wrote and said that the war already had two of his sons. I can still hear your words, I can still hear your laughter. I wonder what you would think about Lady Gaga and what funny thing you would say about her. I wonder what your opinion would be about the Obama, the economy and the world affairs are. I wonder what new artists you would have liked or not liked or what would have been your new favorite songs! I miss picking up the phone and hearing you sing, MEET me in St. Louie, Louie! I miss you. I miss the updates that you would give me about each of my cousins and their families. I miss the stories of how you would tell me that Noah would come over and dunk cookies, and how much you loved Jeff for bringing him and what a good mother I am, and how I have the sweetest kids. I miss you! I miss knowing about Gina and you telling me the funny things about her sweet baby and I know you would just tell me she was adorable, and then you would tell me who you thought she looked like.
I play all these conversations in my head. Knowing how you would respond. Your birthday is coming up. I know you hate celebrating it or even mentioning it but on that day and every day you can know that you were truly loved by many! My children will still speak of you, they will openly say they miss you too and then we say how grateful we are that we even got to know you. Not many grandchildren get to have their grandma's for that long, and not many great grandchildren get to have those sweet memories that they have. Many of their friends don't have memories of their great grandparents. They are truly blessed. You helped shape their lives. To this day, Warrior's favorite cookie is pecan sandies because of you, my children can't look at your home without salivating for gum and diet ginger ale and they don't even like diet ginger ale! LOL, but they do at your house!

Mani pedi day -Grandma day

For Christmas the girls got grandma a pedicure treatment and they all got manicures for Christmas too, so the cousins were off for their mini spa day.  I love it that they are making cherished memories with their cousins and with Grandma right there by their side making memories too!

 

 

GMa- The final goodby

April 21, 2010

Good Morning Grams,
Your services are at 10am today. I lay in bed listening to the clock tick away the minutes and thinking just one more day I have to get through. I know when you are at your resting place that I can truly start to rest, too. I plan on staying disconnected and will busy myself with many things.

Your casket is beautiful. Grampa had already had some money set aside to cover your funeral expenses and, that was almost 20 years ago. Your children, whom you adored and loved so well, chose an upgrade and chose the most beautiful casket fitting for an Elect Lady. It was the softest pink and mauve with a bit of antiquing, and inside was the palest pink cloth embroidered with pink roses. Roses were your favorite flower, everyone knew that. The flower sprays were amazing and plentiful! You had so many friends and family come to bid you farewell. But, it was alarmingly clear that family is where you set your priorities.

Dash is particularly taking it hard. He loves you so much. He's so young and all he understands is the emptiness, it's hard for him to feel happy for you that you are in Heaven when he is consumed with is his grief of missing you. I hope that you will touch his tender heart and comfort him. He is particularly worried because his other Grandma is also in the hospital and he is worried she may come visit you. With all of the preparations going on we have chosen to stay very low key about his grandmother's condition. I know Mr. Incredible is pre-occupied, as well. I told him we would be fine here and he should go to his own mother but he wanted to be here for me, the children and for you. He loved you so, too. You and gramps showed him such unconditional love. In fact, that was one of your greatest qualities, was unconditional love. A quality I cherish and adore and a quality I hope to emulate. It's going to take some work.

We arrived to St. Patrick's Cathedral for services. You would have loved your sermon. It was very beautiful. The Father explained many of the symbolic rituals that he did. Everything that he said, I believed in too. Different yet the same. Things will ring familiar for you too as you hear them.

Dash was asked to assist the Father, to serve as an alter boy. I know you would have been so proud of him. Dash enjoyed having a part in your day of rest. It's a closed casket today and I know you would have appreciated that.

As we were driving to your resting place, I recalled that the last time I travelled this road was 19 years ago for Gramps and I recall that was a hard day for you and again a hard day for me too. I am begining to hate this road. It makes me sick.

The ground has been prepared and the Father has said a beautiful prayer and thoughts. I feel numb. I don't feel anything. I'm not sad, I'm not mad. I'm just here. I know you aren't here, so I don't want to be here, either.

Being at the grave site makes everything so final and I hate the finality of anything. However, once I leave you here and say good bye. I don't want to come back. I have never felt that way about a grave site, until yours. I'm happy remembering you in happier places. I don't have to go to your grave to pay my respects to you. I think you understand this too, because you didn't like to go out to the site, after gramps either! I too, finally get it! Why do we have to go to the place that brings the saddest memories? The place I want to go is to your home. Because it brings back the happiest memories and the greatest recollections.

You were so well loved and I know you knew that. Father passed out flowers from one of your sprays. He gave me one but I didn't want it. I took it, and then I gave it to Dash. I don't want anything that will remind me of you that will die! The sting of it hurts too badly. I don't want to watch the flower wither away and die. I thought my hand would shrivel as he offered it to me. I am glad that the girls kept their rose and pressed it between a book.

We will be eating at Aunt Ruth's. Everything has been catered and you would have liked the food. Aunt Jolene made chocolate mayonaise cake and cupcakes and Uncle Jim made brownies. Perfect remedy for us Mormons to drown our sorrows in desserts that were heavily filled with chocolate. But, somehow I felt like I needed more. Wine was offered but I wanted the hard stuff, vodka, gin or rum. I didn't really want it. I just wanted the day to be over.

My children have exams and have school projects, and everyone has to work. So, we saw you on Tuesday, had your funeral today and tomorrow we fly out. Everyone else plans on going back to their routine as well. As the old saying goes, "Life goes on".

I'm too lazy to arrange pics! here they are