In Loving Memory

It's been a heavy week full of reminiscing and sadness. When one loses a grandmother who has been there through thick and thin, through all the fads and phases a teenager goes through, who has held your hand at Disneyland as a giggly, excited 6 year old, who has watched as her first grandchild (me) passed through high school and college graduations, proms, and seen her through the births of 5 of her own great grand-children, it is hard to say good-bye!

Grandma was certainly something special. She was one of the most feisty ladies I've ever known, yet one who walked her talk without veering to the left nor the right- EVER. Her moral compass never wavered; The Word of God guided her steps wherever she went. I know without a doubt, she was a mighty influence on each of her 5 grandchildren, and her 11 great grandchildren. Her legacy will no doubt be felt for a very long time!

There was never a time I can remember when she wasn't the most generous person in my life, nor a time I can recall that she didn't mean exactly what she said. One time, I remember we were at Disneyland and she under no uncertain terms told me to hold her hand. I never questioned her direction, and was rewarded with a day of Snow White and Pirates and lunch at the Blue Bayou.

The memories are too many to recount here, but I'll indulge myself with the top 10 (in no particular order):

1) Lunches out at the local Jewish deli where we'd order chicken noodle soup and cheese blintzes with strawberry jam.

2) Trips to LA's Chinatown for shopping and dinner out.

3) Going to Dodger's games where we gorged on hot dogs and Crackerjacks right behind homeplate.

4) Making homemade ice cream flavored with peaches right off her tree.

5) Her teaching me how to trim roses "just right" in her luscious garden.

6) Many, many holidays of family fellowship with conversation and games, but never without her beloved Pecan pie and black coffee

7) Countless hours of grandma watching me swim in the pool in La Crecsenta, exclaiming about what "a fish I was".

8) Sitting in the "red rocker" watching Little House on the Prairie or her personal favorite The Music Man.

9) Her holding her first great-grandson, The Away One, in her loving arms telling us that he was the sweetest baby she'd ever held; and then holding every other one of her great-grandchildren in succession after that- they were all "the sweetest baby she's ever held".

10) The delight in her voice as she answered the phone when I called her on her last birthday. It was that way whenever I called- just to hear from her family was all that mattered. GG, as she liked being called, loved her family more than anything else in the entire world, always living a life of sacrifice for them.

We'll miss our GG, but take joy in knowing she'll never know pain or sorrow or death, ever again.

Just so you don't think I've hidden myself in a cave or joined the local circus never to be seen again, I should explain that I've traveled to the US to be with family for a couple of weeks. To make it a doubly hard week, 2 days after GG passed away, Dad had a mild episode that appeared at first to be a stroke. That sealed the deal for travel back to be with family. I don't know how much time I'll have to update posts while I'm here, but there you have it.

Until Next Time,

SteppeSister