Gram

I received word from my Dad this afternoon that my grandmother had passed away earlier today.  She was 94 years old.  I was trying to get an afghan made for her to use on her bed, but was not able to finish in time for my grandmother.  Someone else will receive it instead and I hope it will remind them of the wonderful person it was originally intended and designed for when they use it on their bed, or where ever.  It will be pale, Spring green and covered with white and pink hearts.  I may also make two or three throw pillows to go with it and add a ruffle around the edge - I don't know for certain yet, it is a work in progress.
Gram is the one who taught me to crochet.

My grandmother also taught me to make a mean loaf of banana bread, make jam and jelly, tend a garden, knit, and stitch quilt squares.  She taught me the value of patience, determination, self-reliance, and how to kick an idiot in the backside when needed (though that last one may have been communicated inadvertently).  She loved me when I was unloveable and was my friend when I thought I had no friends left.  She held me up as long as she could and let me go when it was time - the absolute best kind of grandmother for any person to have.

Neither of us was perfect and there were hurt feelings and arguments now and then, but they were learning experiences for me and helped me get to know my grandmother in ways nothing else could have managed.

For eighty of her ninety-four years she was a mother-to-be, wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and finally, great-great-grandmother.  When my grandfather passed away after forty-plus years of marriage, my grandmother chose not to remarry, not because there were no opportunities for her to do so, but because her entire life to that point she had always been told what to do by someone else and she decided she wanted to make some decisions for herself.  Gram excelled at making her home warm and welcoming for all of us over the years and took many of us under her wing when we were floundering in a world we were not quite ready to navigate on our own.  I always wondered if Gram ever had a chance just to be a girl until I saw her with my aunts one day and realized that she found her girlhood in her relationships with her two daughters - at least a part of that girlhood.  I may be wrong about that but that is how it seemed to me at the time.

Despite having known my grandmother my entire life there is so much I never found out about her.  I know I will learn more in the days to come as I, and all of my family, deal with the grief of her passing.

Ninety-four.  Wow!  What a life!  What a grandmother!