Last month Gram went home to heaven.
While I know how much I'm like my own mother in so many ways, I also know I wouldn't be the person I am without Grandma influencing so much of who I've become.
Her funeral will be put off until June in hopes that the family spread out literally all over the world will be able to come together to celebrate her life and eternity in heaven with her Savior. I've no doubt that we'll have plenty of laughter mixed with the tears as we share all our memories of not only her but Grandpa as I don't think they can be successfully separated from each other in most of our recollections. After all they were a team for almost 75 years. Grandma may have gone ahead of him to heaven for now but the dementia that's been worsening over the last while has been a blessing to the man who in many ways has reverted to a childlike state, happy and unaware.
Grandma was the definition of a grandma - fill the grandkids full of sugar, spoil them with love, and return them to the parents. My childhood visits included copious amounts of homemade cookies (extras were always found in the basement freezer), bowls of popcorn, and creme de mint shakes (the kind with alcohol). She loved her people with food. She always served spaghetti the night of our arrival. She still served that meal to us years later while she had the ability despite her slowness and various aches and pains. She would try to serve our kids jello with canned fruit jiggling within it's walls and couldn't understand why they were adverse to it. She extended hospitality to the very end of her ability. Everyone had a place at their table and she had the capability to make everyone there feel special.
I will cherish the recipe cards written in her distinctive handwriting. Her memory will be with us when we are enjoying her rhubarb pie, green wreath cookies, and caramel corn, and slow cooked ribs. She loved the Taste of Home magazines and would save for me the ones she had gone through, the telltale cut outs of missing recipes showing that she'd already picked out the ones she wanted to try. She had her favorite dishes but she was also adventurous enough to try new ones too - usually on company or to potlucks.
Their home was always filled with music. They sang in their church choir, grandma an alto. They loved the hymns of the church and the songs of the liturgy taking them through all their years, reminding them of the Saviour's love. Their other passion was real down home country music. When our family moved to Springfield back in the '80's, they were thrilled to have the chance to visit Branson the years before it became the craziness it is now. Grandpa taught himself some guitar and always wished he could play other instruments too. I recall his ability to belt out all the twang and grit he could muster! Even now, the nurse who attends to him clued into the magic of music that still has the ability to cut through the fog of his mind. She plays it and he perks right up and recalls all the words and tunes, his face lighting up! It's no wonder music has always played a vital role in my home too.
I adored them both as a child. When I went to Prep for high school my relationship with them deepened. Instead of living across the country from me, they were now the closest relatives - just a three hour drive! Throughout high school, I would occasionally go to their home for weekend visits sometimes bringing a friend but more often than not just myself longing for a break from my peers. All I really wanted to do was sleep and eat grandma's good food but they had different expectations. Grandma's definition of "sleeping in" was the not mine so she would start vacuuming in front of the door somewhere around 8 AM. We usually had some place to go - I don't remember being bored those weekends. During these years I got to know them without my parents around which really changed the dynamics. I didn't even have to share them with anyone those weekends - they were all mine! Their home offered me a respite from teen drama and their love nurtured my soul. Of course, the highlight was always the evening when Grandma and I would stay up to watch "Love Connection" and eat popcorn. Sunday mornings were church and after lunch we'd head back - either by car or by plane. Yep, Grandpa had a pilot's license and access to a relative's plane and he would often pick me up or fly me back to and from school. So cool!
I wish ... I had a candle to light that smelled like their home used to. After visiting them I'd go home or back to school and I would unpack my bag and my clothes would smell like their house. I don't know what exactly made it smell like it did but it was Them.
They were truly inspiring people. It was Grandpa's dream to build a log cabin. I remember log home magazines piled next to his chair long before any trees were cut down. I think originally it was supposed to be a modest, standard A-frame. He had no professional experience in building (he worked for the phone company during his career and his main hobby was flying so it's not like he was bored or anything) but it didn't seem to deter him. He dreamed big. He researched. I'm not sure how many years - decades maybe - this dream grew. All I know is that Grandma seemed to go along with it all and they did it together. IT turned out to be a log home in northern Wisconsin on the lake. He cut the trees down, and step by step the dream came to fruition and ended up being a two level log home with a loft and garage. They lived in it for years until my parents took it over somewhere around 14 years ago. Sure, the electrical is a little sketchy but I don't think any fires have started yet;)
They were always so encouraging for me and so supportive. When I didn't go back to DMLC for teaching and instead went to cosmetology school, they helped pay the bill. They also loved Wayne and welcomed him to the family with open arms. I was their first grandchild and Will was their first great grandchild. We named Will after Grandpa. The last trip they took to visit us in Canada was for Will's confirmation.
The oddest thing I can recall especially as a kid was how Grandma would keep and wash out empty cardboard juice containers and reuse them to put either leftovers in and freeze or fill with the kitchen scraps to throw away. Obviously something generational and thrifty but I grew up in the era of Tupperware so this was weird to me!
But the memories that mean the most to me are of the many times we would worship Jesus together as a family - either around the dinner table in prayer and devotion or at church and up at the communion rail. That was the legacy they've left me and my family. Generations standing up side by side to receive the Lord's body and blood links us together with the Body of Christ for eternity. It's the closest thing to heaven on earth and it's the comfort we have that as each one of us takes our turn and falls asleep we will awaken to each other forever with Him.
I called her when she was in the hospital. It was a Sunday afternoon. She hadn't been to church since probably February before Covid hit. She was always the one to do the reading for her and Gramps. Her eyesight didn't give out on her like Grandpa's did but her voice got gravelly over the years. Still she would read aloud for them both. She would read all the articles in Forward in Christ, Meditations every morning, and weekly read a printed copy of Wayne's sermon from the week before. They loved his sermons. This particular phone call would be my last conversation with her and I asked her if she wanted me to read today's Meditation to her. She readily agreed and I read it loud and slow in hopes she could understand me on speaker phone from her hospital bed. I'm so grateful to have this memory.
Be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10) was the verse she clung too and even when she became confused and disoriented at the end she would finish the verse that Mom would begin ... Be still Mom would say .... and Grandma would finish it and know that I am God.
The next time I'm at a restaurant and I go to swipe the basketful of free breadsticks and saltine crackers into my purse I'll say, "These are for you, Grandma. These are for you." 😘
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