a little catch up

Here's a picture of our whole family.

While it may seem a bit morbid to take a picture during this sad time, this is the only time we have all been in the same place at the same time in a LONG time. This picture was taken after church, before some changed into their "funeral" clothes and before our eyes were completely red and swollen.

Here's my immediate family.

Time for a little catch-up. I haven't had much time to post lately and I have weeks worth of pictures that will take me literally weeks to post, so I think I will be behind for quite a while. *sigh*

We did surive this past weekend. Thank you to all of you have sent such kind thoughts and words of encouragement. I'm not sure it has all really hit me yet. I've been busy enough that I've been able to distract myself, for now. My sister, Sondra, cousin Ashley, and I wrote and read euologies at Grandma's funeral. Not the easiest thing I've ever done, but not as hard as it was for my dad - he preached and held it together, despite his worries that he would lose it. And fortunately there were wonderful people at my parent's church who took care of the boys so I didn't have to worry about them during the funeral.

Sondra was in town until yesterday afternoon. So we indulged in a little retail therapy with mom while Andrew was at Kid's Day Out. (sidebar) Have I mentioned how much I LOVE KDO? It's so great for both Andrew and I. I get to go shopping with just one child, and he gets to play with other kids and hear Bible stories and do crafts!

Here's a copy of my eulogy. Unfortunately I don't have Ashley's or Sondra's, but they both did a great job.

When we started to write the eulogy, we found that we all had such personal memories that we each decided to write our own. So bear with us as we try to make it through these.

Some of my fondest memories are from the many Saturdays Grandma watched us kids. We would play games and bake. I learned the secrets to her crispy chocolate chip cookies and her yummy cinnamon rolls. However, I never learned the secret to her famous Grandma tea. There was always a pitcher of Grandma’s special lemon iced tea in the fridge and no matter how hard we have tried to copy the recipe, we can’t get it quite right.

When we were talking about all the memories of Grandma, food came up repeatedly. We all had favorite foods that grandma made – cinnamon rolls, creamed peas, cookies of all kinds, and pies. She would make large batches of them all and make the rounds to all of our homes to share. In fact I just enjoyed a batch of her cinnamon rolls last month. We used to all go camping and Grandma would spend days packing the camper with food and at every meal, she would make countless trips in and out of her camper carrying all of that food to the picnic tables. I remember we teased her that she had enough food to feed an army or at least the whole campground!

Grandma had a competitive side. She loved to play games, especially Rook. Every holiday or family gathering she would sit at the table as soon as we were done eating and get a serious game started. And she was ruthless. It didn’t matter if you were just learning the game, she played to win. It was the only time I ever saw my grandparents fight.

Grandma also liked things done a certain way – the right way. And she didn’t like changes to her schedule - wash on Mondays and trips to town on Tuesdays.

Grandma loved us unconditionally. Grandma always supported and encouraged any and all decisions I made. When I called to tell her Keith and I were engaged, she said, “That’s great! If he’s good enough for you, then he’s more than good enough for us.” And I remember commenting to my mom later that I was surprised by her response because they didn’t even know him. But Grandma trusted my judgment and welcomed Keith into the family with open arms.

Family was very important to Grandma. Even when I lived 2000 miles away, Grandma made sure I never felt too far from home. Her letters and phone calls always assured that I knew the latest happenings in the family and community.

Another word that describes Grandma is honor. She hid Grandpa’s Alzheimer’s from us for a long time. She wanted to protect him and she also told me she wanted to save her children from dealing with it. She took care of him for as long as she could. And then she faithfully visited him everyday after he had been moved into the nursing home, even when some of the visits were difficult.

Grandma had incredible faith. I found a quote in her Bible that said, “God said it. Jesus did it, I believe it and that settles it.” I think this is a great example of how she felt and how she lived!