Hurting
Posted on October 8, 2008 - Filed Under Life
My grandmother died yesterday morning, she was 96 years old. The only way to describe how I feel is… it hurts.
I was thinking about her life and all of the things she has lived through and it is amazing to me when I put it into perspective. She lived through 17 presidents of the United States, starting with William H. Taft when she was born in 1911.
She lived through World War I, The Russian Revolution, World War II, The Arab-Israli Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm and the current war in Iraq. And those are just the major ones. There are literally hundreds of smaller conflicts, all of them shaping history, that she would have witnessed.
When she was born, the US was just starting to embrace the automobile on a large scale. Manufacturing was starting to boom and the US was entering a new era.
She witnessed the early years of powered flight and the brave people that would take that technology and do amazing things like solo flights across the oceans and eventually around the world.
She survived the stock market crash of 1929, and the depression that followed.
So many things that we take for granted were invented during her life. Television, Satellites and Space Flight, the Internet, Movies, medicines and medical techniques and so much more.
What an amazing journey she had.
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She was full of spirit and energy, always on the move and always looking out for me.
She gave me my first sip of beer when I was a kid. :)
She was funny and liked to sneak around the house to scare me, and be scared in return.
She loved to dance.
She loved baseball and her Seattle Mariners, watching the fames religiously on TV and catching a game at Safeco Field at least once a year.
She taught me how to swear in Italian, and would laugh when I couldn’t pronouce things the right way. We would laugh so hard that tears would be streaming down our cheeks.
She would take me for walks around the neighborhood when we needed to run errands or go to the store. We would walk down to the Pee Wee Tavern and buy eggs from the owner because he raised hens and sold the eggs to his customers. We walked EVERYWHERE in South Tacoma because she never learned to drive.
She could whistle loud enough to make my ears hurt.
She loved to cook. Every time I stopped by her house the first thing she would do is offer me food. “Let me get up and cook something for you” she would say. In her eyes, I was never eating enough and one of the ways she showed us that she cared was through cooking. She would bake bread and pies using things that she had grown in her garden.
She loved her dogs.
She loved children, always making time for them.
She raised a huge family with so many children, grand children and great-grand children that we can’t keep count.
She taught me how to compost things, starting with coffee grounds and egg shells.
Most of all, she taught me what it means to love someone unconditionally and to be loved like that in return.
A few weeks ago before things got bad for her, she made a pretty strong and clear effort to tell me how much she loved me. She told me she loved me so much and that she would always love me. It was important to her that she say this and made sure I understood.
I think she knew that things were going down hill and she wanted to say it before things got bad. I held her hands, let her know that I understood and told her how much she meant to me and that I loved her. That was the last time we spoke.
I will never forget her and the love and bond that we shared throughout my life. I was lucky to have someone like her and will miss her every day.
I could probably write pages and pages about her but I can’t bring myself to really put how I feel into words right now. I am going to take some time off to reflect on her life and honor her memory, and thank her for the wonderful gift of life and spirit she provided to all of us.
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Hang in there. Those are beautiful memories you have. I am truly sorry for your lose.