Always to be Remembered

It seems like the death of my grandparents have always happened near significant events in my life. Makes it pretty easy to remember when they died. The first was my grandfather on my mother's side. He died the year I graduated from high school. Next was his wife who died when my oldest was eight. In fact we had to post pone her baptism because it was the same time as the funeral. Karebear was pretty mad about it and still to this day we joke she is never going to forgive Grandma.

My grandparents on my father's side of the family are getting pretty old and having a lot of problems that come with declining age. We often wondered who was going to die first. It ended  up being my grandmother. On her casket my grandfather had printed out a banner that said "The winner". When you asked him about this he would say, "She cheated though; she fell down". Around Halloween time my grandmother fell, hitting her head.

We received news of this event by an emailed photo that had the caption of "Grandma says, Happy Halloween" Just showed her positive outlook on life. She had some bleeding in her brain. They eventually had to do surgery in attempt to relieve the hematoma. This resulted in them needing to shave her head.  I'm sure this was hard for my Grandmother. This was a women who had a regular appointment with the hair dresser and I have many memories of her telling stories of pin curls. Despite these efforts, her body was just worn out and she was never able to fully recover. She died and her funeral was the day before my recent birthday.

Grandma was known for her personalized birthday cards. My kids baby books are filled with a yearly card signed from her. I was impressed that while she was in the hospital my husband received his birthday card. As my mom said, Grandma worked a month ahead. She had cards laid out to be given to all the birthdays for the rest of the year. Thus my mom handed me a card at the funeral.

The other significant event in our lives that will help us remember Grandma's death was that Tator was baptized the first part of January.

Being baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was a big deal to my grandmother. To help us celebrate this day she made embroidered quilts for each of her grand daughters. My grandfather wanted these to be remembered at my grandmother's funeral. As the first grand child, I was asked if they could display mine. It was neat to get this out of storage and share it with my daughter as she prepared for her own baptism. My parents were also able to find, in the many family albums and journals my grandmother kept a picture she took of me. She had included information on how and why she made these quilts.

I am so grateful that when I remember some of the significant events in my life I can in turn remember some of the most important people in my life as well, my grandparents.