I want to tribute day 7 to her, to our ancestors, to the people who paved the way. Those who lived and passed and forever imprinted their being in our hearts.
Somedays I still want to call her or think that a card from her will be in the mail. Death is such a strange thing. She doesn't feel gone. the memory so present. I miss her dearly.
My Gram passed this weekend... I miss her so much. Losing someone you love is strange. I feel sad and tired. Guilty and a bit of panic. I know she isn't suffering anymore and that this was her time.
But what I'm left behind with are memories and a fear of those fading. And I guess some of them will. I wish I had gotten her laugh and voice bottled. I wish I had listened to more stories about her life. I wish I had called more. I wish I hadn't been so far away for the past 20 years. I wish she knew how much she meant to me...
An article is going around on Facebook with what the dying wish they would've done more of in their life. I am writing this as a "living" going back and celebrating what I did have with my Grandma Carrie.
I know that as I write this, those close to me and us might say "that's not how it was". But that's what's so great about memories, they are mine. This is how I remember her.
I remember...
- how they toasted bread on an old coat hanger on the stove and how the bread drawer smelled. I loved her bread.
- how I would get my gram's curlers out and I would do her hair till she fell asleep.
- how after we moved away, and we called home my gram would answer the phone in the living room and my grandpa in the bedroom. Him crying and my gram saying "geez Bud".
- how we would come over for Sunday dinners and everyone (it seemed) was there and how good her salt-beef was.
- how she would always say "I love you right to the bones".
- how she could never pronounce Guelph and hated that we lived there.
- how the last few years when I phoned we would talk for 13 minutes and then she would say "Oh someone's coming to the door, I gotta go" we would talk for another 5 minutes and noone ever knocked. Good way to get rid of me though. :)
- how her vegetable garden looked and how much I loved their yellow house.
- how she taught me how to knit, but didn't really have the patience for me fumbling around with it.
- how when I stayed the night as a kid, I'd stay in her bed and my Gramp would get kicked into the single bed.
- how she would watch wrestling and loved Ricky the Steamboat and how cool I thought she was for liking it.
- how she would save little packs of Fruitloops in their food stash and let me eat Tumbs because I thought they tasted real good.
- how when I think of her my Gramp is along her side. And how much she missed him after he died. She said she would tell him off for dying from her.
- how I know that more memories will come up over the next weeks and I will be sending her my love with each one...
- how she would end a conversation about something hard with a "God eh C'rin".
And so will I. I miss you dearly and know you are in peace.
God eh Gram. <3
