Life doesn’t stop just because I’m gone. People get engaged. People get married. People have babies and people pass away.
I spent my last day in the states with my 92-year-old grandma, Eileen. I reminded her several times that I was going on the World Race and I’d be gone for 11 months. (Her memory wasn’t all there!) Normally when I would tell her, she would say “Good for you. I wish I would have done something like that.” Her support meant the world to me. If a 92-year-old could look back on her life and say that, I knew this was something I had to do!
When I said goodbye to her that day, I knew it would be the last time I would see her in person and she did too. She said, “Jamie, you’re going to make me cry,” and I said, “I’m going to cry too.” So we both cried.
That was the second time I’ve seen grandma cry. Saying goodbye to her was hard and when the elevator doors closed and she was out of my sight, I broke down.
On Christmas Eve, she went into the hospital and I knew it was her time. Who knew that she would be stubborn and strong in her death too? She passed away on January 6th …
I’ll miss you so much grandma but I know you’re up there with Jesus. I can just picture you young and beautiful, your body fully restored, walking around with grandpa. I’m sure he looks really handsome. Maybe you have on red lipstick?
So here it goes… Here are my favorite memories of her…
When I was eight, grandpa and her took me to Minnesota. Just me. A big deal when you have four kids in your family. I remember feeling so special getting to spend two full weeks with her. One day I spent hours in the water at the little beach inside our camp spot. Grandma just sat there in her lawn chair and watched me dance. I did dance after dance for her. When I came out, I was covered with at least 50 leaches. Grandpa took his pocketknife out and cut every single leach off, one at a time. I’ve hated leaches ever since.
We would take afternoon hikes in the woods. We weren’t supposed to pick the wild flowers but grandma let me pick a lady slipper anyway. We took it all the way back to Council Bluffs and pressed it in a book and it stayed there until she moved out of her house a couple of years ago. And then there were the homemade ice cream sandwiches at the bait shop. Enough said.
I can still smell the gas and the matches she would blow out when she would light the stove in the motor home and I can picture us sitting at the table playing rummy. Twos were not twos, they were deuces and if you picked up the throw away pile, she would say “Now that’s a mit full”. Even up to last year, I couldn’t beat her at rummy and I seriously tried.
Sleepovers at grandma’s house were the best. I never have had someone love me the way she loved me. When I got to grandma’s house, her entire day was committed to me. We would flip through magazines and cut out the ads for glass dolls and make scrapbooks. Under the stairs in the back room, she made a grocery store for us kids and would save cereal boxes and butter containers and put prices on them for us. We also had an amazing marble collection at her house.
The day would end in a bath. I think grandpa and her used Dial or Irish Spring. Whatever it was, it spelled so good. She always washed behind my ears AND then it was time to go to sleep. I dreaded this part of the day the most. Her and grandpa always went to bed so early and I was never tired. I would lay on the pullout bed, in the pitch black, in the back room just listening to the humming of that old fridge until I fell asleep.
I would wake up and my oatmeal, with apples and raisins and a piece of toast would be waiting for me on the barstool. It was always the same thing. Burnt toast NEVER went to waste. You bet she would be scraping the burnt parts with a knife into the sink and then grandpa would pour me orange juice, starting close to the cup and then raise the pitcher and bring it back down. Every time.
Grandma never learned how to drive so we would take walks down Avenue G and over the railroad tracks to Hyvee if she needed anything small. We would always stop at the pet store and she would let us look for the longest time.
Around Christmas time, the big JCPenney’s catalog would come. Eric, Michelle, Brian and me would fight over who would get to look through and circle the toys they wanted first. Grandma was usually very practical and we got a new outfit or shoes but one year, I did get a big stuffed bear from her and I named it GG, short for Grandma and Grandpa.
I can taste her homemade chocolate pudding, with homemade whip cream and one walnut right in the middle, her chocolate drop cookies, cinnamon rolls, and don’t get me started on her potato salad. (Thank you mom & Michelle for perfecting all of these recipes!) She was such an amazing cook. She loved us so well through her cooking and baking.
But my favorite thing about her was the way she would wink at me. There could be twenty people in the room. Everybody talking about something different and she would make eye contact with me and wink, letting me know that we were in this together. That she noticed me. She didn’t talk a lot but she didn’t have to. We just understood each other. The wink said it all.
And that’s how I’ll remember her. Winking at me.
