Wednesday, January 16, 2013- Happy Birthday Grandma! Miss you every day.

I always thought it was so cool that my birthday was so close to my Grandma. So two days after I celebrate my 35th birthday I celebrate the life of one of my heroes that left this world way too soon. My Grandma was such a big part in my life growing up, even though she lived 8 hours away from us. Her and my Pawpaw were always with us for special occasions and took many trips with us growing up. They braved Washington D.C. and Disney World with us and memories were made and I am forever grateful. My Grandma was a nurse in the delivery room in a Detroit hospital. She was in the delivery room with my brother, sister, and several of my older cousins. She would stay in the delivery room right up to the moment the baby would be born because she was afraid to be in the room if something was wrong with the baby. She witnessed the heartbreak on one of her grandchildren being born as a stillborn. My Grandma was the one that stayed up with me my very first night home from the hospital. I guess I never asked my mom, but it may have been on her birthday:) We were at our Grandma's house a lot growing up. They would keep us when my parents went to National Associations or they were always at our house for various reasons. I can still picture pulling up in their driveway late into the night and when we pulled up you would see the TV on and my Pawpaw in his recliner and my Grandma sitting up asleep on the love seat. If I close my eyes I can go back to times sleeping on the couch in the family room and being woke up to my Grandma and Dad arguing  talking about something:) or sleeping in the middle bedroom and hear her talking on the front porch with someone. My memory can take me back there, but it hurts to know I will never go back to those moments.  My Grandma was a great story-teller and an amazing writer." When we would stay with her she would tell us bedtime stories and I can still remember the story she told about a couple that ordered their children from the Sears and Roebuck catalog.  We would sit in the living room, her on the chair by the door and us on the couch and she would tell us stories from time gone by and it did not matter if we heard the story a million times, we wanted to hear it one more time. She would tell the story of when she started dating my Pawpaw years after she had raised her own three kids and she said she was going to answer the door and say, "What you see is what you get! She would tell the story of when she finally started driving and she refused to make right turns. She would drive around until she could get where she needed to go without making the right turn. She would also tell us the story of her and my mom were driving in a car and my Grandma make a turn into a huge ditch! But the funny part is that she kept on driving! I guess she thought she would eventually drive right out! She finally stopped when my mom started to panic because the dirt was just flying by her window! I also love the story of the time she made a pineapple cake that was actually called "Better than sex" and she made it and brought it to a church function! She was horrified when someone asked her what kind of dessert that was, so she kindly said, "Pineapple upside down cake." :) She loved making me her famous chicken-n-dumplings and I can still hear her asking Kaleb (who was a baby) if he wanted a milkshake because she knew he loved them. I can still see her standing in the kitchen making us breakfast.   Ah, I miss those days so much.

My Grandma loved her children and all of her grandchildren. She would do anything to make us feel loved and to point us to Christ. She was a spunky lady who did not keep her opinion to herself. She was my encouragement when I struggled with being the chunky girl, because she had lived through the same experiences.  She loved her roses. She loved butterflies and antique collectibles. She loved and she was loved dearly.

I was blessed to attend college in Nashville, just a few hours from my Grandma. I  would go up there for the weekend many times through-out college. I believe it was at the end of my sophomore year that we got news that my Grandma has developed a brain tumor. It was not cancer thankfully, but the way it was located they could not remove the tumor in its entirety. She had one surgery to remove as much as they could. We all sat in the Vanderbilt waiting room during her surgery. She came out of surgery and they were able to remove a lot of the tumor, but all of it. She went through several months of physical therapy and since she was staying in Nashville I would be visit them almost every day. My Grandma recovered from that surgery, but with a few years the tumor has regrown. Her next surgery they decided to go in and try to hollow out the tumor. This surgery took place close to my graduation and with weeks of my wedding day. My Grandma came through yet another surgery. On my wedding day we were taking some pictures before the ceremony and I was on the stage with my back turned and the photographer wanted me to turn my head towards her. When I turned my head the doors on the side of the sanctuary opened and my brother was pushing my Grandma in her wheelchair and the tears flowed because she had made it! As I think about that day I realize that this would be the last time I saw her as the Grandma I knew. She would soon take a turn for the worse, but in the worst type of way. Her mind was still sharp, but the tumor started to effect her speech and her mobility. There was a day that my mom had come into Nashville to take my Grandma to the doctor. They got a hotel to stay in to make it easier on her. My Grandma did not say a word the hours that I was with her. She would nod and half-smile, but did not say a word. I had to head back home so I leaned over and kissed her goodbye and she said, "I love you." We would spend the next few years watching my Grandma slip into a thin and frail women. She would spend the next few years in a hospital bed in their family room. On May 16, 2004 her battle was over and she finally went Home. I am thankful that my Grandma is no longer suffering , but I miss her every day. I grieve that she never met and loved my children.  Even as I write this my heart aches to hear her voice again and have her arms wrapped around me, but we have hope, "¹³ Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. ¹⁴ For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him." I Thess. 4:13-14.