Today was....rough.

I feel bad for the people that follow me on Twitter some days.  Today was one of those days.  Today was rough, and they heard all about how sad I was....

My grandmother passed away on St. Patrick's Day this year.  Just a few days after her 76th birthday.  While I was not super close to that side of my family, it still struck a very deep, sad chord with me.  This was the woman that I would spend a week or so with during the summer while in elementary school.  She took me horseback riding for the first time; she swore she wouldn't ride with us, but she did!  Her house is where we would sleep on Christmas Eve and open presents on Christmas Day; I still have the teddy bear that my great grandma made before she passed away and my grandma gave me the following Christmas.  This was the woman that would always have chocolate milk in the fridge for us.  She would always have sweet corn and watermelon when it was in season; I remember my grandpa would cut the watermelon in half, one side he would eat by himself the other side split evenly between myself, my sister, and my grandma.  While I didn't live as close to her as my cousins did (they lived about 5 minutes away, we lived over an hour away), we had a special relationship.  It was different than what she had with the other grand kids.  It was ours.  There are things I told her that I never told anyone else, things I did with her that if I ever do again, I will always think of her. 

Well, today was the first day we spent going through her home.  It was just stuff and a place, but everywhere I looked I had a memory, everything I touched had a memory.  One of her friends had asked for a specific quilt that my grandma had, and when she picked it up today after it was found she said that it was just something between them that meant something and words couldn't describe it.  On the drive home, I looked at mom when we were talking about what we wanted from the house and I said, "What was quintessentially my grandma, what I think of when I think of her, she gave me, with the exception of a couple of things."  My grandma's table sat next to a china hutch that was full of stuff for as long as I could remember.  In there were little figurines of the California Raisins (remember those?!?!  haha), I can remember sitting on my grandpa or grandma's lap and playing with them on the table while the adults talked after dinner.  I can remember bending their little arms and stuff.  Well, when my grandma asked what I wanted for Christmas a couple of years ago, I said I wanted those if she didn't want them any more.  I didn't get them for Christmas, she gave them to me for my birthday a few months later.  She carefully wrapped the little plastic toys, taped like it was glass, boxed like it was Fenton or something.  I cried when I opened them, and I'm crying now as I think about them.  They're still wrapped up, in the same box she wrote on, in my closet.  I will probably not bring them out until my grand kids need to play with them at the table someday, but right now, I wouldn't give them up for the world.  Isn't it funny how it is the most random things that you attach memories to?  How you can attach a person to something that seems so insignificant without the memories, the feelings, the love?

The one thing I walked away with today was my grandma's lobster bells.  My grandma's sister lived in Maine for a while and all of us girls in the family are ocean people.  We all love it, my grandma was no different.  She adored those bells.  I remember sitting on her front porch during summer storms and her saying how much she loved the sounds of it in the wind.  My mom bought one and my grandma bought the other when they visited Maine.  My mom also has her own on our porch at the farm.  Those bells will hang in my apartment somewhere since I don't have a porch, but when I do have a porch, I will hang them and listen to them all the time. 

There are still a few things that are willed to me that I don't have, and I'm ok with that.  But, when I do have those things, they will be just as special as my pieces of plastic and metal.  I won't have many things from my grandma, but the things I do have are my grandma.  They are the things that I already think of when I think of her. 

Well, I think I've vented enough...I've cried enough today (honestly, I've cried more today than I did on the day of the funeral)...I've laughed today from the memories...I've gotten quiet and pensive.  I will probably have some more of the same tomorrow.  Thank you for reading this if you did, comments and emails {prajaline at gmail dot com} are always welcome!