Going to Grandma's...

So without all the craziness of the last few weeks, we sould have been loaded up in dad's RV on our way to Texas this morning to visit my grandma.  On account of a broken leg, and collapsed lung, our trip has been postponed until next week.  Dad and Billy are still going this weekend, and next Friday Jen, Karen, and I will road trip it down to Salado, Texas to see her.

My grandma has lung cancer, she's been a smoker forever, and now she's sick.  I have fond memories of the year we lived with her and my grandpa in Florida after my mom died.  I remember we used to joke about hiding her cigarettes from her, but she never quit smoking.

My more recent momories of her are not as fond as the ones from when I was a kid, and I hate that.  We have been down to visit twice since she moved to Texas, and both times have not been pleasant.  She seemed to get mean and more religious as she aged.  These are the memories I will try to not hold on to.

I remember her yellow Cadillac, how we lived just a few blocks from the beach but we didn't go that often.  The bunkbeds she bought for the girls' room.  How Karen, Billy, and I got in trouble for opening our eyes under water in the pool in the backyard and she spanked us with that orange piece of race car track.  How she would stand with me for hours in the sun to remove the head lice I picked up from a friend as school.  How she would read to us at night.  I remember a story about a redwood tree that has stayed with me all this time, but I can't recall what book it was.  How she used to yell at Uncle Frank for driving us around with the music too loud, I was sure forever that he hated us for taking over part of his life.  Apparently he did not.

I think the thing that I loved the most about her was that she loved my mom.  She was her biggest fan, always willing to talk about her to us.  She was the only person that we had that was like that.  She would tell us about how hard she worked to take care of us, and to teach us manners, and how much she loved us.  She is the one person that made it seem like evern though she was gone, she had existed.

It was a good year.  It ended all too soon when we went off to Germany with dad and our new family.  I sometimes wonder where our lives would have gone had we stayed with her.  It does make me sad that she will be gone, that that one cheerleader of my mother's won't be around forever.  She loved us unlike anyone else, and for that I will always be thankful, and when her time comes I will be very sad to see her go.