Memories

Mixed vegetables at every holiday
Orange Jello Salad
First Day of School shopping
Tweety book
Mirror Perfume Tray
Colgate toothpaste
Crunchy Oatmeal Choc Chip Cookies
Mini Candy bars on the bottom shelf of the fridge in brown bowl
Heavenly Hash Ice Cream
Goodie bags to take home with a banana, granola bar (Honey Oat – Crunchy Kind), mini candy bar, fritos
Tuna Fish Sandwiches with Nestle Choc Milk for lunch
Always wearing lipstick
Bungalow home
Church on Saturdays with Tomato juice when we got home to hold us over for Steak & Roni’s

My gram is going into Assisted LIviing tomorrow. Actually I am going to help move her stuff today after lunch. I started thinking about all the things from when I was little (I choose to remember this time with her, not the crazy –“You’re fat” time). The list could go on for miles. It’s funny how the little things have carried into my life.

Mixed vegetables at every holiday – nobody likes them but somehow we have them every holiday, like it’s some kind of important tradition. Last Thanksgiving we revolted, we had green beans!!

Orange Jello Salad – My gram made it for every holiday, now I make it, it’s super yummy. Most of the women in our family like it, it’s my daughter’s favorite!!

First Day of School shopping – My gram always took me school shopping, we picked out a dress to look extra special on the first day. It’s important to make a good first impression.

Tweety book – I read the same book over and over at my gram’s. funny how things repeat themselves, no matter the generation, it seems kids always want the same book read over and over. She gave it away to her neighbor girl. I was heart broken (I was like 20)

Mirror Perfume Tray – I would sit for hours spraying perfume at my grams. It was perfume that probably didn’t smell all that good all mixed together. My mom had given her some of it. I rarely leave the house without perfume to this day.

Colgate toothpaste – We used Crest, but gram used Colgate. I use Colgate now, my dad still uses Crest. Phyllis will probably use Crest when she gets her own house… lol…

Crunchy Oatmeal Choc Chip Cookies- my gram made choc chip cookies, oatmeal kind, crunchy. They were so yummy. They were always in little gift bags for Christmas. They were dunker kind or you would break your teeth. I wonder where I get my love of baking cookies from??

Mini Candy bars on the bottom shelf of the fridge in brown bowl – My gram always had snickers or Milky Way fun size candy bars in her fridge, now it’s the Hershey’s s miniatures. She knows I like the Mr. Goodbars ones. I wonder if she has a stash somewhere just in case I stop by, there always seems to be at least one in the bowl.

Heavenly Hash Ice Cream – It’s my favorite, I always saved the choc covered nuts for last. It’s kind of like rocky road with whipped marshallowy stuff. YUMMY!!

Goodie bags to take home with a banana, granola bar (Honey Oat – Crunchy Kind), mini candy bar, fritos – she would send me home with Goodies for my lunch, Care Packages I think she called them. If I was really lucky… those crunchy cookies… hmmm… I wonder if she made cookies before I got there…. It’s all coming together now… I think she loved me…

Tuna Fish Sandwiches with Nestle Choc Milk for lunch – On half days or Doctor appointment days my gram would pick me up and we’d have tuna fish sandwiches (made with Chicken of the Sea Tuna in water, miracle whip, hard boiled eggs), toasted bread, and Nestle Choc Milk with an extra scoop of the mix. It was my favorite thing and it grossed my uncle out (he lived with them at the time) to eat tuna fish and choc milk.

Always wearing lipstick – My gram always had lipstick on. I almost always do too.

Bungalow home – We lived in a duplex growing up, and then a ranch. My gram lived in a bungalow. When it was time to put my “wish list” together for my house, that was first on my list. I wanted a house just like my grams, one that I could fill with memories.

Church on Saturdays with Tomato juice when we got home to hold us over for Steak & Roni’s – We would always go to church on Saturday (Catholic thing) and then come home and have a small glass of tomato juice, sprinkled wit h celery salt, and then my grampa would make steak fried, boil macaroni, and then removed the steaks and then put the macaroni in the pan to get the “juices” for flavor. It was so yummy.

There are a million more memories of my gram. She was a great lady, and I will always have those great memories to carry with me when she eventually goes to be with Jesus.


What this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her. —Matthew 26:13

Comments

Sara said…
you made me cry this morning! i pray that someday my grandchildren will have such sweet memories of a place they knew they were loved. i'm so grateful that you shared this. i'll come eat tuna and chocolate milk with you.
KayMac said…
My Grandma was my best friend. I taped her taking me on a tour of her house, showing all the nooks and crannies that we all loved, and then sitting at her kitchen table recounting the life stories that we never tired of hearing. I think I will watch it this weekend.
Pat said…
This is a Kleenex post. Lots of tears over here. This was so beautiful, I wish I had grandma memories, but one died when I was a toddler and the other one lived miles away and we were not close. You were more then loved, you were adored...and blessed.
I hope my grandsons have some of those same sweet memories of us.
I love reading this kind of post!!
Jada's Gigi said…
What a tribute! What do we really have at the end of the road...but memories and hopefully lots of love...is seems as if you have plenty of both with your Gram..I hope my Jadabear can say the same of me one day...