Remembering Grandma

I was reminded over the weekend that it's been exactly 40 years ago on Sunday that my Grandma Gertrude died.  She was my mom's mother and I was 13 years old.

She had breast cancer.  I remember how weak Grandma was after the cancer treatments that she fainted during church once.

My mom got into cancer victims and friends groups during that era of my life and I attended several with her.  It was later that the group decided to change their name to something more positive.  Cancer victors and friends.  The group met in the basement of a bank and was all about health and how to build up the strength you need for the cancer treatments that they did back then.  And foods on how to fight cancer holistically if you were opted to NOT do cancer treatments.  It mostly leaned towards that.

Did you know that there is arsenic in the little seed inside the pits of peaches and that it can fight the cancer cells?  It can also kill you if you eat too many...

Later, while in college and attending some of these with Mom, I saw my college freshmen Algebra teacher there.  His wife had cancer.  It was so weird seeing him outside of campus!

I remember that Grandma's sister came up from Arizona for the funeral and for a while afterwards, taking care of the family and my grandpa.  She looked and sounded SO much like Grandma, it was uncanny.  like Grandma never left.

Ruth Ann remembered a cookie jar that Grandma used to have snacks in ALL the time for the grandkids.  I can vaguely remember it, but not as well as she did.  She must have snacked a lot... ;)

She found a pic of it on Pinterest.

I remember helping Mom clean out the house afterwards since Grandpa was moving to the church parsonage now.  He was our pastor.  

Towards the last few years of her life, Grandma would buy a bag of sugar, thinking they were out.  When she got home, she'd see that she already had plenty and would hide the bag in the attic so Grandpa wouldn't see that her mind was slipping.  We found so many bags of petrified sugar up in that hot little attic!  

Also SO many stacks of plastic containers from yogurt or cottage cheese.

We also found old purses with tons of change in them.  So many were so old that they were truly worth something, so they were saved away a different way after that.  I guess people of that generation didn't trust banks.

There was an auction of all the belongings on the grounds surrounding the parsonage and church that Grandpa didn't need.  One sister remembers strangers pawing through the boxes like they were nothing.  Looking back now, I wish I'd have had money to bid on something to remember her by.

But I do have this.  I treasure it.

Cracking walnuts with Grandma.

That was me!

My brother bought their old house and is a great construction worker.  He can fix and remodel anything.  So anytime I want to revisit Grandma and Grandpa's place, I can go see him.  Of course, they didn't have a koi fish pond in the yard... 

And Mark filled in the little peanut shaped pond they had on the hill.  It was always filled with tadpoles and tiny frogs.  A regular biology class any time you wanted.  I can't tell you how many tadpoles I'd take home and watch them grow legs and mature.

And my house is surrounded by lilacs and peonies, just like Grandma and Grandpa's was.  Some days when the lilacs are in bloom and my yard is a little shaggy, I sit on the bench on the front porch and reminisce about days and loved ones gone by.

I guess it's going to be one of those days...