Grandma

Well, last week was rough. I found out Sunday morning that my grandma was very sick and in the hospital. After church, I was on the phone with my mom and dad a lot for several hours. They told me that I should fly home b/c it wasn't expected for her to last more than 24 hrs. I ended up getting a ticket for Monday (my birthday). I told them I wanted to talk to her again which I did - I told her to get better because I'd see her on my birthday! Then I told her I love her. She could only gurgle back. At 5pm, dad called and told me she was gone. It happened about 4:15pm. After letting the tears come, I went through all of my photo albums looking for pics of her when she was 20 years younger, healthier, dancing (not in a wheelchair), and with all her beautiful brown hair. That really made me feel better. I flew home after work the next day and did the same thing with mom/dad. Then we made the bulletin for the funeral which took quite a while. The funeral was Thursday. We went to Centralia, IL for the funeral. I saw my cousins and brother and his kids and several of grandma's old friends and my mom's old friends. Then we went to the burial in Chester. It was good to see all of the things she saw when she was growing up and even the house in which she was born! Then the long drive back. What made the whole trip better was spending such quality time with my mom/dad. We watched some movies, cooked together, went to downtown old St. Charles, and an art gallery and shopping. Sadly, I had to come back Sunday evening and then back to work. I miss mom/dad. I think mom is doing okay. Hard to tell sometimes. She'll probably deal with it more privately like I did. I will really miss grandma. My favorite sayings of hers were "Goodness gracious sakes alive! Caught a fish and thought I'd die!" and "Who has more fun than people?" She was so beautiful and smiley and I'll never forget her voice.