Missing You

I have been trying to write this so many times in the past few weeks.  When you put something in writing, it really seems permanent and complete.  Some times that is one of the hardest things for me.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about my Granny.  This month marks one whole year since I saw her - since I was able to sit and talk to her about everything and anything - since I was able to feel her arms around me - since I was able to hear her laugh.  So many things have changed in a year.  The boys have grown so much.  There are so many things I'd love to tell her, things that she would always just know about my life that I can no longer share with her.  She pops into my head every time the boys come home from school with a story or get a good grade on a paper or something funny happens or they do good in sports... all the time!  Every time I take a good photo - see for years I always got doubles of all my pictures, I sometimes still do out of habit.  I know she's "here" and I can feel her sometimes, but we all know that 's not the same.

A few month ago my cousin Heather and I went to Uncle Brian's and got the boxes of old family photos.  I've been going through them and trying to get as many as possible scanned into the computer.  So many memories, so many years.  Since I was a little girl one of my favorite things was going to spend the night with Granny and without a doubt I would end up in the basement looking through the old photos.  I would pick out a handful, bring them to her at the kitchen table, and listen to her share all the memories the photos triggered.  I remember for the first time seeing my daddy and uncles in my head as little kids.  Realizing that they were in a sense, just like me and my siblings/cousins.  It was so mesmerizing to me.  I loved seeing the photos of Granny as a young girl and mother.  Those photos of her with her boys make me feel even closer to her.  She once was in the very same place I am with my boys.  Still mesmerizes me.  I love that connection.

Her stories are one of the things I miss the most.  No matter what was going on in my life a visit with her was like a recharge.  The boys and I liked to stop at Wegman's (for a sub picnic) or McDonald's (for caramel sundaes) on our way over to visit.  We would sit in the garden when it was warm and she would watch the boys play tag or trying to find the frogs in the little pond just smiling.  We would sit the little café when it was cooler.  Granny digging through her little purse for coins so the boys could each have their very own soda - no sharing allowed, drinking her coffee and story-telling or listening to the boys tell their stories.  The boys loved her as much as she loved them.  They always wanted to go visit, even asking to go if we hadn't been recently. 

Ethan (age 9) still brings up Granny at least once a month.  He drew a picture of him and her on the cover of his art journal for school.  A blessing and a curse for my sweet sensitive boy.  I'm so glad to know that he was so close to her, but so sad to see the twinge of pain in his eyes when he brings her up.  I don't want him to forget her but I never thought it would be this hard for him since he was so young.  Last year about this time Ethan (who always had short hair) decided to grow out his curls.  I remember getting him ready for school and without thinking saying "I can't wait to show Granny your curls!"  He looked at me and said in the sweetest way "We can't go show her mom, but I know she sees them and loves them!"  It took everything in me to hold myself together until the bus came.  My sweet, sweet boy.

Christopher has a photo of Granny and him together on his shelf, right next to her "Shoot for the Stars" angel.  He knows that's exactly what she would want him to do.  I make sure he knows how proud she'd be of him.  Jadan is always a little harder to read.  He knows there is nothing he can do to change the fact that she's gone, so he tries to just pretend it never happened.  He's the stoic one in this house, but he also has one of her angels on his shelf.

I am so blessed to have had such a great relationship with Granny.  She was more than a grandmother to me, she was a friend and confidant.  I enjoyed her and I was even more blessed to be able to share that relationship with my children as well.  I still hear her voice in my head some days when I need some encouragement.  I don't think a day will ever go bye that I don't in some way think of her.  At least there are so many smiles in the tears and that make it all worth it.