My grandmother passed away February 24th. It's been a long week...there are only so many funerals one can take in a years time (just an FYI to the Universe, the number I can take in 1 year is 2, so enough already) and I'm tired.
What was revitalizing this past weekend was all the amazing things people had to say about my grandmother in her almost 95 years. Yes, she would have been 95 on April 18th...and she still lived alone, in a large farmhouse, feeding her birds, painting her pictures, living her life to the fullest. Now funerals and me, we just don't get along. I could get choked up at a strangers funeral, so needless to say, I am not the one that you want reminiscing about the dearly departed in front of a crowded room. It wouldn't do. But that room, it was CROWDED. And after my Uncle spoke about his mother, so did OTHER people. People that grew up with her, people from her church...people I didn't know. They talked about her love of fishing, painting, how she returned to high school and received her diploma at the age of 60. How she moved on, and continued with life and her love of traveling after all 3 of her husbands had passed on (yes, I said 3, hey, the lady was a playa). All of this from people I barely knew, but knew her very well, because through out her life she was out there, she was doing things, she was embracing life. And I thought that was amazing.
It made me hope that I can make as much of my life as my grandma made of hers. I might be able to. If I try real hard.
On the lighter side...wtf is with the deer head? I went ahead and clicked on some of the other recent obits(right side of this page)to see if the "Deer Head" theme was something that the funeral home had established for it's standard obit background. Uh. no. Apparently, the back ground image is chosen by the dearly departed's family.
Grandma, you can thank Dad and Uncle Jim.