wink     ; )

Home Again

We're home from CA. The time we spent there for Grandma's memorial service was quite good, though very sad and difficult at times. I spent a fair amount of time cuddling and calming down two of Grandma's great-grandchildren. I really love those kids.

We missed the cremation due to our flight being repeatedly canceled, but we were able to make it to the memorial service. It was packed. The service was solemn and filled with emotion. It was held in her church, a beautiful Episopal church which was smaller than I expected. We sang her favorite hymns, read her favorite psalms and took communion. We cried.

The family spent a lot of time in her house afterwards. Going through her stuff resulted in a flood of unexpected emotions. The grief I expected. But there was excitement in exploring and discovering new things about Grandma; regret that we had never done this before and would never do it again; longing for Grandma to be around so that she could tell us the history behind this object or that; delight when some family member actually knew the history of a knick-knack or heirloom; laughter when everyone tried to foist off the ugly painting onto everone else; dismay when we saw how Grandma had cut apart some of her clothes in an effort to make them more comfortable in her final days; bemusement at the many things that she had bought but never opened much less used; shocked hilarity at the surprises (my sister-in-law popped out of a closed holding a box and declared "There are some things a person should never find out about her Grandmother." Inside the box: a pair of tasseled pasties.); comfort in the fellowship and in being surrounded by memories of Grandma and the familiarity of her things; sadness in knowing that after this, the house will never feel like her home again--it will get emptied out and cleaned up so that it can go on the market and her personality and presence will be erased from the house.

I miss her.