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| Clockwise: me, Colin, Grandma Betty, my mom. Photo taken Thanksgiving, 2010 |
My grandma Betty's funeral is tomorrow. She lived a long, full life, but the later years were not kind to her body. Lots of pain and discomfort marked her final years... so her passing is a blessing.
But.
I miss her terribly. She was one of my favorite people.
She was kind:
My grandma always made me feel special. She always looked the other way whenever I sneaked a butterscotch pudding from the pantry. She knew exactly which toys to have out, at-the-ready, whenever we came to stay. She would get after my grandpa if he was got upset with me for not doing something properly (a common occurrence, bless him). I can just hear her voice in my head, "Oh, papa, she's a good, helpful little girl." She let me spend copious amounts of time playing with her jewelry and lapel pins. She was a music teacher, and had an extensive pin collection. I would organize them all sorts of ways...by holiday, color, order of preference, glitz factor, etc... I can still picture the way her treasures and pictures were arranged atop her dresser, where she kept those pins. Fast forward through the years to when I became and adult, and struggled with adult-sized problems. She gave me comfort, advice and refuge when I needed it.
She was loving:
Whenever grandma took me around town on errands (a small town, pop. around 3,000) she would greet every acquaintance and introduce me (if they didn't know me already). I always got a certain thrill when she did that. It was the way she said it..."This is my granddaughter, Kirsten". It felt exactly like a warm hug. She knew how to make you feel good about yourself. She was also firm, but in such a way that you didn't feel like she was. I couldn't ever imagine misbehaving for grandma - you just didn't do it because you always felt content and that your needs were being met.
She was truthful:
Ten years ago, while I was going to school, I took an upper-level anthropology class about recording Life Histories. Grandma readily agreed to be my subject. That was one of the best things I ever did and I will forever treasure the experience. Every two weeks I would make the drive out to see her as soon as I was finished with classes for the day. I would make it in time to relax during her last piano lesson for the day, and then we would go get dinner. Afterwards, we would come back to her cozy little house, set up the tape recorder, and talk for two or three hours. We talked about politics, religion, family history, children, marriage, death, the Great Depression, WWII, teaching... everything under the sun. She didn't gloss over her life - she gave me a very honest assessment of how she felt about each of those topics. The next day I would drive back to school in time for my first class. Then I would spend the next two weeks transcribing the tapes and weaving the conversation together into cohesive units that would later become chapters, and finally a book.
Here are some memories and pearls of wisdom from those conversations that I want to share...
"There is a master plan for our lives, I feel. It's up to us to develop it, even if we make bad turns or bad decisions. God sees us through and helps us find ways to correct it."
"I feel we are here to grow spiritually. I feel that there are certain lessons we need to learn. I believe that if we don't accomplish those things that we're supposed to do now, I feel we will be back to do it later. I know a lot of Christian people don't believe in reincarnation, but I do. I think we come back. I think we have to come back until we reach the ultimate, whatever it is. We have no idea what the ultimate is, because we cannot fathom that yet. I feel that a lot of these things that happen to us are pre-ordained. There is a reason for everything, yet it's our decisions that affect our lives. I think some of our suffering we bring on ourselves. By our willfulness, or our unconcern. Suffering probably helps us to grow to reach those heights. God has set up certain natural laws. If we thwart those laws, then we can experience suffering and pain."
"As a child, I knew that I wanted to be involved in music, but I also wanted to be a schoolteacher. I would play school all the time. When I was by myself, I would entertain myself by playing school. Dad had a ladder leaning against that front porch that he built, and the roof of the porch was almost flat. Not quite flat, but flat enough. So I moved all my stuff up there and played school up on top of the house. I would do that for days and days. I'm sure my parents worried about me being up there. They were probably more worried about me making holes in the roof and causing a leak. I don't know why I chose to play up there, I just did. As a kid you do things without knowing why."
And my personal favorite:
"As a little girl I would imagine lots of things. I had imaginary playmates, companions, even an imaginary husband. His name was John. I would talk about him with my imaginary companion, Doonan. We were ladies, and we had our own homes, you see. Doonan and I would discuss our husbands. I had a lot of "ladies" that I would visit on our farm. There was Mrs. Calfpan, Mrs. Chicken House, Mrs. Icehouse, and Mrs. Barn. They were all of my 'playmates'. I was around six or seven at this time. I'd write up minutes because I was secretary of our 'club'. I'd write up minutes about what Mrs. Chicken House said or what Mrs. Cow Shed said. (...) I did have a notebook that I had kept for a long time that contained the minutes of our 'meetings'."
So what did grandma want people to say about her after she was gone?
"She was kind, loving and truthful."
I miss you grandma.
Love,
your Stennybug
