The world lost one of the best

On December 28, 2007, the world lost a truly lovely person. My wife's Grandma past away.

We've been married for just over 11 years. Grandma was one of the first people I met in her family. She was the cornerstone of family. My wife had the greatest of admiration for her and I quickly learned why.

Grandma was the type of person that was always giving and hated to receive anything. The first thing I learned about being around Grandma was don't ever expect to leave her house hungry. I gotta to know the woman she was by eating with her and Grandpa. She never liked to see me leave without eating something.

When we were first married, my wife was a nurse in a hospital. She worked lots of crazy shifts. We didn't live all that far from Grandma and Grandpa. Somehow Grandma always knew when my wife worked evenings...because my phone would ring and there was Grandma...she'd just made a fresh pot of chili and wanted to know if I could come over. Yep, an invitation from my Grandmother-in-law. If only you had tried the chili you'd understand why I never turned it down.

It didn't take us long to have our first child. Grandma and Grandpa couldn't have been more excited. Our first daycare provider was none other than Grandma. We had one stipulation though. Grandma had been a life long smoker and we just didn't want our daughter growing up around cigarettes. Not a problem for Grandma, to have the opportunity to spend that much time around her great-grandchild, she just quit smoking. She'd been smoking for 40 years and just quit so she could do our daycare.

Having her do daycare helped create a bond to one more generation of her family. Our oldest daughter got to know her great-grandmom. How many daycare providers do you know that would stop you from leaving because your little one had a messy diaper. Yep, that was Grandma. I couldn't leave as long as the diaper was messy and as a new Dad, I couldn't have been more grateful.

Those people that grew up as her descendants are blessed people. I'm grateful that I got to know and love this woman. She was truly one of the greats. I miss her deeply.

This week with all of its sadness provided an opportunity. Like I said, Grandma was the cornerstone of the family. Family from all over the nation converged in our hometown to pay tribute to her life. 16 of the 21 grandchildren came home. I'm not sure this much family has been in town together since our wedding and most of us just picked up where we left off.

Last night, we joined KT (my wife,s cousin), S (her husband) and Bobby (my wife's cousin) and his new fiancee out for an evening of laughter, beer, food, beer, bowling and a little more beer.

I got some pictures with my phone to share with everyone.

As far as the bowling went, Scott showed why he bowls in a league and the rest of us bowl once per decade. But I don't think that was the point. The point was we were all together and the laughs just kept coming.


All the family has gone home now. Back to the corners of the country. Life is starting to return to some kind of normalcy. But I still miss Grandma.

On the brighter side, there is a wedding in the future. Let's hope we can get there.

I took a bunch of pictures the day of the funeral. I'm hoping to share them with everyone soon. I had a problem with some of them and am having a good friend whose a genius with Photoshop...he's fixing them. I'll have them soon!