Homegrown Thoughts

Sunday, May 29, 2005 - Memorial Day Remembrances

Posted in Deep Thoughts

This is the first Memorial Day without my grandma.  It will be a year of firsts...each holiday that rolls by will be the first without her.  She was my last grandparent. I've lived through the loss of 2 of my other grandparents and miss them, too.  But she and I had a special connection that I can't explain, but that was always there.  All at once, I feel her with me and feel alone without her. It's my memories of her that keep her close.  Today I'm having a vague memory of a Memorial Day when I was a little girl.  She, my mother and I went to the family cemetery to put plastic flowers on the graves of long departed family members.  I'd never known any of these people as most were gone before I came along.  I trailed along from grave to grave reading names and dates.  I looked with pride upon the special marker that designated my grandfather's grave as that of a veteran.  The grandfather I never knew, except through the memories of those who knew him.  I wonder what my grandma was feeling as she placed flowers on her husband's grave.  And today I'm wondering if I should go to the cemetery tomorrow.  I haven't been there since that cold, windy day last December when I took a rose from the top of her casket, turned my back and walked away from her with my son's hand in mine, past the graves I'd watched her lay flowers on so many years before.  I don't know if it's okay for me not to go.  It seems disloyal somehow.  But I don't think I'm ready to see that 2nd date filled in under her name.  I want to imagine, as I usually do, that she's still here.  Just as I imagined that she was the same woman she'd always been as she lay in a nursing home, sleeping the end of her long life away, just waiting...and waiting...until she was mercifully freed from her frail body and failed memory to join my grandfather. Going to her grave can't bring her any closer to me.  I know she's not there.   Why do we go to the graves?  To remember.  I don't have to go there to do that.  I remember her almost every day.  If I allow myself to dwell on thoughts of how much I miss her, I mourn again and the memory is a bit too fresh.  She is always with me.  I see parts of her when I look at my own face in the mirror.   I remember her impish grin when my younger son does something silly that I know would have amused her.  I see flowers and remember how much she enjoyed them. When all the clothes I try on are too long, I remember that it was she who gave me the shortness gene.  I like to think that I also inherited her quick wit that surprised people coming as it did from someone of her advanced age.  I remember her when my older son tells me his favorite color is green...it was hers, too.  I remember her when I worry about everything - I learned that skill at her knee.  I remember her when I see the photo of her that she offered me because it was one she really liked - and then told me I could have if I wanted "a picture of an old wrinkled lady" in my house.  A part of her memory touches me every day.  I can't get any closer to her than that on this side of Heaven. Although they're bittersweet, these memories that bring both warm feelings of 'unconditional love with skin on' and feelings of loss that the arms that hugged me are now gone, I never want to let go of them.  They keep her close to me in my heart.  Through my memories, my children can know her.  And maybe next year I'll be ready to take my boys with me to the cemetery and we'll lay some flowers on her grave and they'll know who she was because I shared her with them.  And then we can get back to the business of making our own memories together. Jodi

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Sunday, May 29, 2005 - She lived for a century, didn't she?

Posted by ByHisGraceInColorado

Wow, how could I have so quickly forgotten that you lost your beloved Grandma last year?! I remember those beautiful pages you created of her, all those memories. You know, you sent them to me and they were with a huge group of files that I lost off my computer; all my "fruit loop" stuff, all the birthday poems and silliness. If I could have any of that back, I would want the montage you did of your grandma. It was the greatest! Thank you for bringing her back to my mind today.... Nancy

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Sunday, May 29, 2005 - Thanks, Nancy!

Posted by HomegrownHearts

Yes, she did. She had just turned 104 when she died. One reason I feel so selfish about it all...how many people get to have a loved one around that long? Not many! Funny you should mention the collages. (And you're so sweet, too!) I almost put them on the blog, but they would have been too small to really see very well. I need to get them printed up into 8 x 10's and framed. I was looking at them today and smiling and crying...well, that much is probably obvious from my blog entry, LOL. So if you really want them again...you know I never throw anything away! Thanks for reading and for remembering my grandma with me. I know you would have liked each other. :-) Jodi

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