I was looking through some pictures the other night, and I thought I would share a few photos of Scott's grandmother. Grandma LOVED children! Especially her great-grandchildren. I will never forget her meeting each one of our children.
She met Lily for the first time when she took her annual summer pilgrimage via train to Pennsylvania. Lily was just a few weeks old and I'll always remember how Lily's little eyes focused on Grandma's face when she held her for the first time. Grandma was SO happy to hold babies...and her own, darling, little great-granddaughter dressed in a precious bonnet? All that much better!
[I have a photo to go along with this memory, but alas, it is from the pre-digital era in our household, and I am currently too lazy to go retrieve it and scan it.]
This will always be one of my favorite-pictures-of-all-time of "GG" (short for great-grandma). She adored Lily (I think the blonde hair, blue eyes, expressive smile and dimples may have had something to do with it. :) We were out to lunch in Florida on this afternoon, Lily was 2 years old. And they couldn't stop talking to one another. GG had so much fun with Lily that day at lunch...just enjoying her smiles and expressive nature. We were at a noisy steakhouse, and due to her poor hearing, she couldn't hear much of the adult conversation, but she and Lily were locked into a deeper conversation... one that didn't require hearing actual words. Where granddaughter only had to imagine, chatter, and revel in the audience of one great-grandmother. And the great-grandmother was equally as entertained. :)
Grandma met Joey when he was a happy, little butterball of a four-month old boy! She couldn't get over how much he looked like Scott...how cute he was ("just like his daddy") and what a content and pleasant baby he was! ("just like his daddy") She always said, "He's such a pretty boy! But I will call him 'handsome' instead, because when Scott was little he corrected me one time and said, 'Grandma, I'm not pretty, I'm handsome!'"
Grandpa (her husband) died about a month before Joey was born, and I think a new, cute, little great-grandson was a bright spot in Grandma's life at that time!
Most of all, I remember the time that Grandma met Gracie for the first time. Grandma and Scott's dad were visiting Pennsylvania about two weeks before I was due with our third child. They were scheduled to fly home on a Monday, but Hurricane Wilma hit South Florida that day preventing them from leaving. Lo and behold, I went into labor and Gracie was born that evening! They all joked that we should have named her Wilma. :)
Grandma had never before had the privilege of seeing one of her great-grandchildren as wee-newborns. And there she was at almost 92 years of age, holding Gracie who was just a few hours old. She was delighted! I mean, REALLY delighted! She was beaming! I think it made her year! Gracie was her eleventh great-grandchild. On the video we have from the hospital, you can hear her exclaiming how beautiful and perfect her eleventh great-grandchild was, and how "There's nothing wrong with being number eleven!" She adored Gracie.
If Lily had Grandma's coloring as a little girl, then Gracie surely has her spirit. :) She is just as spunky and fun-loving and has the same joie de vivre as her great-grandmother had!
Over the next few years, as Grandma's hearing and short term memory got worse, she was able to tune into adult conversations less-and-less. But she always loved watching Gracie skip around and play. As the "baby" of the great-grandkids, she adored her and Gracie needed no conversation to communicate with Grandma. They played a little game with Grandma's shirt sleeve that involved Grandma hiding her hand in her sleeve, and then Gracie would "find" it and Grandma would pop her hand out of the sleeve. They played this for hours, it was great entertainment for the both of them. :) And they always blew kisses back and forth to each other each time they said good-bye.
I'm so thankful that our children have so many good memories of their great-grandmother. A lot of them are from our trips to Florida...
These are from her 90th birthday party...
Here she is wearing what we affectionately refer to as her "Candycane dress" :)
And a lot of their memories are from her trip to Pennsylvania every summer. They loved swimming in the pool at the hotel where she stayed with her son...
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We went on picnics...
Here she is sitting on a swing... by the way, she's over 90 years old here. She also went on a hayride at the pumpkin patch at 91 years old!
And whether we were in Pennsylvania or Florida, there was always a trip to Crackerbarrel! Her favorite restaurant!
Lastly, I remember what a wonderful grandson my husband was. He honored her and made a concerted effort to spend as much time as he possibly could with her, whenever we were in her presence. He spoke kindly to her and expected our children to respect her the same way, and she noticed it.
One time, Scott took a day of our family vacation to go over to her house and help her hang pictures and rearrange things after her house was repainted and she was alone and couldn't do it herself. He lovingly and willingly drove her to the hospital every day of another of our family vacations, so she could go see her son who was in the hospital dying. Grandma loved Scott and he loved her.
The Lord has been very good to us this week. Again, we were reminded to "number our days" and be prepared for the day when life will draw to a close for each of us.
Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;
-- II Corinthians 1:3
When we, again, came up with the "perfect" arrangement, I sweet-talked my handsome husband into hanging the plates on the wall...
