My Grandma

March 22nd is a bitter sweet day for me. It is the day that Hubby and I were engaged and a few years later that very same day my grandma passed. Before my grandma passed away I would always reflect what a special day...a day that an Idaho boy found an Idaho girl and he plunged head first. He was so cute how he got me to the temple and he was so cute how he asked...on "our" bench, in front of "our" temple, that special place.


Then fast forward a couple years later...my dear grandma started to experience health problems. A once strong, beautiful woman started to slow, age was taking hold. I remember the day I got the call a couple weeks prior to her passing. Gram had been hospitalized. I loaded up my baby and I made a mad dash to the hospital. When I got to the hospital there lay Gram. This once strong woman looked weak, she looked tired and I saw my worried Grandpa and my mom. I started to cry when I saw her. I had never seen her in the hospital bed, always it has been Gramps with all his surgeries but never Gram, she was strong, she was tough.
Doctors told mom and Gramps that it was her kidneys and that she would need to do dialysis. Gram fought them. She said it was not a life she wanted to live, a life on dialysis. After the whole family had begged and pleaded her to do it, she finally agreed but she just didn't want to go on dialysis.

The morning of her minor dialysis prep surgery she got up, she cooked breakfast for my grandpa, her sweetheart of over 65 years. They got ready and headed to the hospital. They got to the hospital the nurse came down and got her, she sat in the wheelchair and Gramps was finishing the checking in paper work. He told her he would meet her upstairs and the nurse took her into the elevator.

Grandma left this world on her terms. That was the last time Gramps saw Gram alive. I remember walking into their house that evening after she had passed. Walking into that kitchen, her kitchen, it would never be the same without her there, ever. No one could make the recipes the same, although we have tried, it just isn't Grams. No one could figure out problems like Gram around her kitchen table, nope not like Gram. No one could tell the stories or recite the poems like Gram, never like Gram. As I walked threw there that night I noticed her little frying pan left from the morning from cooking Gramps his fried egg, their last breakfast. Then to walk into the "front room," as she called it, there sat my dear Grandpa without Gram, I will never forget!

(Gram sitting in her chair around that table)!

So this one day may be bitter sweet but it also is a day of celebration of true love. The love of a boy and a girl and the love of a Grandma and Granddaughter. My Grandparents were married for 67 years almost 68 years, they were the best of friends and so in love. What good examples of longevity in marriage, when marriages are in ruins around the world! If you think life is tough, trying being newlyweds in the brink of an awful depression. I hope hubby and I will honor her memory with such longevity!

My mom, my sisters and me around Gram's table-the memories!