my mother's mother

My last post was on my wedding anniversary. About an hour after posting it, I got a phone call from my parents and found out that my grandma, the one I visited back in May, had taken a turn in her health and wasn’t doing well. They were getting on a plane to go see her, and I got the strong feeling this would be it. My parents arrived in Indiana and less than a day later, she passed away.

My other three grandparents died when I was fairly young – the last one when I was six years old, so this woman is almost everything of what a grandparent means to me. I have struggled, I think in a very good way, with a deep feeling of loss. My grandmother was such an amazing woman. There are so many words to describe her. I want to be careful and try to do her justice with the words I use, but I know that would mean writing novels, and even then, you can’t really sum up a person with words. It can’t just be a few sentences or paragraphs. There was an entire life lived and it was full, saturated, flowing over with fun and laughter, milestones, the mundane, sadness, and peacefulness. I feel like I knew just a fraction of that life, but I think even what I didn’t know about her, had a profound impact on me and who I am. It’s mysterious, but I know I was shaped by her in so many ways beyond what I recognize. And really, I am just so thankful that she was one to influence my life. She was extraordinary.
There are so many things I could say about each of these photos. Each one is a precious gift. I don’t know if it’s normal for families in this generation to have taken so many pictures, but I find them to be incredible. When I posted about visiting my grandma earlier this year, I mentioned the dollhouse in her home we grew up playing with. The bottom right picture shows it with my great grandfather, who built it, and my grandma and her sister.

Meemo (that’s what her grandkids called her) was a true hobbyist. She was passionate about many things and was at least willing to try everything else.

My favorite pictures of her are from college. She graduated from Purdue University where she met my grandpa. She was a Kappa Kappa Gamma, and in my opinion was pretty trendy. Check out the peplum and sequins! 🙂

This might be my favorite picture of her. Teaching swimming lessons. I remember her teaching me how to hold my breath underwater without plugging my nose on the beach in Canada where we vacationed with her. The most important part of this one is the whistle around her neck. She was incredibly insistent on water safety and always wanted us to take the whistles out even when we were kayaking 10 feet from the dock.

That’s my mom in the white suit.

And again, in the plaid jacket….and pants. 🙂

She loved life so well. I want to experiment and test and enjoy and try and delight in the same way.

I already miss her a lot. I will miss hearing her sing “Happy Birthday” to me every year. I will miss her stories and her opinions about the neighbors’ dogs and the weather and her garden. I will miss the little phrases that were unique to her. But I will celebrate her, too. It will be impossible not to think of her on my anniversary each year, and I’m actually grateful for that. I think it will be the perfect way to include her in one of my favorite days of the year and celebrate beginnings and endings and everything in between.