My Grandma

I have always been one to wear my emotions on my sleeve and display my feelings publicly. It may or may not be the right way of doing things, but it is what I do and I have conceded to fighting it. So naturally with the passing of my grandmother, I feel the urge to share my thoughts.

My mother has a gift. She can write some of the most meaningful pieces of reflection, tributes or most anything that captures people's emotions. Her tribute to her mother today was touching and beautiful.

There are any number of things I could take from it that I would love to share but the one thing I have thought about all day was one sentence about how the great grandchildren will remember her mostly as a warm, loving person who would hold them and tell them how beautiful they are. Even after she couldn't change diapers or feed the babies a bottle, she still loved having them around.

This reminded me of how my mom and mother-in-law, both grandmas themselves, not only accept duties of changing diapers and feeding my children, they welcome and even request it. I always ask myself, "do they REALLY want to do this?" I worry that maybe I shouldn't be burdening them with these tasks. They did their time. I must be making them feel as though they should be doing these things.

Now, after hearing my mother's tribute, I feel as though from now on, I will: LET GRANDMAS CHANGE DIAPERS AND FEED BABIES....if they request to.

In addition, I received several comments from good friends on Facebook sending their warm wishes to my family. I read things like, "Grandma's rock." or "Losing grandma's sucks." A colleague of mine told me it is hard losing a grandma no matter how long she lived or how much it may have been her time. There is no "right" time to not feel sad.

Yep, those comments pretty much capture the feeling I have had this past weekend.

Finally, when my father's mother passed away three years ago and we went to lay her to rest back in her home state of Alabama, we played "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynard Skynard several times over the days we were there and it has become a symbol of my grandmother ever since. I went through a period of time when I was thinking about her a good bit where I coincidentally heard it on the radio numerous times. I said it was sign that she was communicating to me from another realm.

For some reason I felt compelled to listen to "Spirit In The Sky" by Norman Greenbaum this weekend as I thought about my recently passed grandmother and what do you know, but I stumbled upon it on the radio today as I was thinking about her.

It was perfectly appropriate. So now, I have a song for each of my grandmothers to remember them by. The best part is that these songs are ones I came up with on my own naturally. I didn't seek them out, but they found me. Just how it ought to be.

This one's for you, Baca:


If any family happens to read this and would like to share their own memories or thoughts, I would love to read them in the comments.