RIP Grandma

My grandmother passed away this week. I didn't make it to the funeral, but my sister and I wrote this to be read during the service. We love you, grandma!

We are sad not to be here today to honor our grandmother in person, but we wanted to share with you some of the things we loved about her.

Our grandma was loyal, extremely hardworking, and loving and feisty at the same time. It never occurred to us as kids, of course, how ahead of her time she really was, working full time while having children at home. Or, how it was unusual for grandpa to wash dishes after dinner or help around the house as much as he did. Thank you both for teaching us that at such an early age. As for the feisty part, we got it and love and appreciate it. Our husbands might say we inherited that gene from you, grandma.

It’s hard to talk about grandma without talking about our grandfather. For us, they just go together as a solid pair. We use to giggle when they would talk about going square dancing. Now, we admire the sweet way they showed their love to each other.

Through both of them, we learned to love camping, playing cards and water slides, Mallomars, Dilly Bars and corn diggers, family thanksgivings with grandma’s homemade noodles that we still haven’t been able to make on our own, Pepsi (except for Julie) and shopping trips to Quincy and Walmart.

We must admit, we never grew to love your Red Devil ham.

I’m sure Julie would have had fond memories of her trip to Disney World with our grandparents if she hadn’t started missing our parents so badly halfway through the trip, forcing them to turn around and take her home. Of course, she was just four.

Grandma, thank you for the beautiful quilts you made each of us. They keep us warm throughout the year and remind us of you every time we see them. They are so much more to us than just blankets.

But, mostly, thank you both, grandma and grandpa, for the love and compassion you gave us. We know how lucky we are that you were so much apart of our lives as we were growing up.

Grandma, we are so happy that you are now reunited with grandpa in Heaven. We’ve missed him, but we know how much you have missed him, too.

Grandpa, knowing you, and your love for our grandmother, we bet you have quilting needles waiting for her and you’ve already found her a Hickory Stick so she can start quilting again. And, we hope the two of you can spend an eternity laughing, loving, playing cards, dancing and even find some time to check in on us.