Celebrating the Memories

Tonight I celebrate with a trip down memory lane.  Today is my Grandma's birthday and this is the first birthday she is celebrating in heaven.  I think about her almost daily and many of those days result in tears, I miss her so much and the pain of losing my Grandma hasn't seem to go away at all.  I know it will never go away but I keep thinking it will get easier to accept but not yet.  So today I am going to celebrate her birthday by keeping the memories alive.  I thought it might be fun to document a few of my favorite memories of my Grandma.

*  One of my favorite things to do with my grandma was work in her garden. She had a big garden and I loved spending hours out there with her picking strawberries, digging up carrots, onions and potatoes and of course pulling weeds!  Now that I have my own garden and I am passing on this fun tradition to my boys I think I realize even more how important this memories will be to them.  I didn't realize back then that those simple conversations we used to have out in the garden were ones that would cherish for a lifetime.  

*  Another favorite memory was going over to Grandma's house during the day and playing board games.  My siblings and I would bike over to Grandma's and play games like Sorry, Tiddlywinks, Connect Four and PIT!  My grandma didn't always play these games with us as she was busy doing housework or cooking or something but she was always around and just being at Grandma's was part of the fun.  We would also spend plenty of afternoons down in her basement playing on the piano, playing air hockey or playing endless games of pool (yah, my grandparents had one of those old Lion Footed Pool Tables).

* I have many many fun Christmas memories with my Grandma, it was her favorite holiday after all!  My Grandma used to gather all the grand kids into her living room on Christmas Eve and we would sing Christmas songs such as Rudolph, Jingle Bells and Silent Night.  Sometimes we sang them as one big group and other times we broke out into smaller groups of kids and each group got a song.   I remember one Christmas she took a bunch of the grand kids into her room and she gave each child a piece of the nativity scene and then as she told the story of Christmas each child would bring their piece to place in the Nativity Scene as their character was called.  I remember I carried Mary to the Nativity Scene that year.    Another tradition that my grandma loved was that each family was required to make an ornament each year to bring and hang on her tree.  It was fun to see all the ornaments that everyone brought and for some reason the other ones always seemed to be so much cooler than ours!  Year after Year it was fun to look back on the ornaments that were created in the past, especially the ones that had pictures in them... we would often make fun of how dorky we looked as if we were any better that next year!  This is one tradition that I am also carrying on with my boys... most ornaments on our tree are ones that Colton made in school or ones that I purchased to commence a milestone just as marriage, new home, first Christmas for each of the boys, vacations and then a family ornament each year!  These ornaments have a lot more meaning than some matching store bought ornaments.

*  My grandma loved to play cards with us.  When I was younger we would sit and play the game of "Golf" for hours on end.  And then as I got a little older she taught me how to play 500 rummy and Ace to King.  Every Christmas we would set up a table in the middle of the living room and we would play cards... and we even played for money - a penny a point so sometimes I would lose as much as $2.00!  My Grandma often won and she made sure she collected from everyone one of us.    Back in high school I made a trip up to spend the day with my grandma and she took me with to one of her card tournaments.  I got to her house early so she could teach me how to play the game that was going to be played and after lunch and about 2 hours of practice I was ready!  We jumped in her car and drove to a bar in the neighboring town.  My grandma was so excited to introduce me to all of her friends... it was me and about 40 other Grandmas!  It was so much fun to listen to these ladies and their stories and then the tournament began. I didn't do so well... those ladies were some card sharks to say the least but I had a blast and it is a memory that I will always cherish. I was able to spend the day with my Grandma doing what she loved most... playing cards!

* My favorite memories from recent years was seeing my Grandma with my boys.  Colton loved his "Grandma on the Farm" as he referred to her.  Mason didn't get the chance to really get to know his Great Grandma which sucks.  I do regret not going to see her more in the past couple years... we only lived 2 hours apart which isn't that far but with busy lifestyles we just didn't make the drive as much as I wish we would have.  I am not going to dwell on that though because I can't change it now. Just going to cherish the moments that my boys did spend with their Grandma and keep her memory alive for them.... even if that is just by sharing pictures and stories.

So tonight as I sit at home thinking about my Grandma on her birthday I realize that she is gone. She is heaven celebrating her birthday with those who she was ready to be reunited with like her two sons who passed away from motorcycle accidents when they were far too young and her baby daughter who passed away just hours after she was born.  I know my Grandma is now pain free and she is happy to be reunited with her kids but selfishly I sit her crying and wishing that she was still here with me.  I am not ready to accept that she is gone.  I want to go see her and play cards and laugh and have my boys crawl up in her lap and take pictures of them but I can't and that hurts so much.  She was a wonderful woman and know that I now have one of the most amazing guardian angels but that doesn't make the pain any easier to handle. 

Happy Birthday Grandma, I love you and miss you so much.  It is going to be a hard holiday season without you but we will be sure to celebrate with family just the way you would have wanted to!

One more thing that I just needed to add.  It is about 10pm on Wednesday night, I am sitting down in the family room with my boys.  They are having a slumber party in the family room tonight and are laying down watching a movie.  Well they are supposed to be anyways, Mason is up moving around and playing with some toys even though we have most of the lights off.  He has his baby and is quietly playing and talking to himself.  I was just sitting in the chair typing away on this blog  (hadn't even got to adding pictures yet) when out of the blue Mason stopped what he was doing and said " Mommy, where is Grandma?".  It caught me off guard as I was in the middle of this post (and crying).  I looked at him and asked which Grandma?  He just looked at me for a moment and then looked around the room but said nothing. I asked him again, "Which Grandma Mason?".  He said nothing and then just like that he went back to playing like nothing happened.  So weird. I don't know what to make of it.  Maybe he was just thinking of one of his other Grandma's as he saw them both today or maybe my Grandma was here watching over us and he knew that she was here.  Believe what you will, I believe that my Grandma is watching over us everyday in everything we do.