Grandmother

The reason I haven't blogged in the past week is because we had to go to Atlanta because my Grandmother suddenly passed away. She was young, only 77, but had been in a lot of pain over the past few years. She has always had a bad back, and recently fell and broke her hip and ankle. She was in rehab, and we had hopes of her living a "normal" life again, but there were other plans for her. She had a stroke last Tuesday.

This isn't meant to be a sad post! I'm writing about this because I want to tell you how special my Grandmother was to me. She lived a long, happy, and for the most part, healthy, life. She believed in a heaven where you see loved ones and talked about it often. I almost think she was looking forward to it! She was ready.

We have always had a special relationship. I spent many weekends at her house when I was little. Her favorite story to tell was how I wasn't supposed to sleep with her when I spent the night, but one night I was begging to sleep with her, so she told me that I could if it rained...she said I woke her up in the middle of the night and said, "Grandmother, Grandmother, it's raining!"...and of course she pulled me into bed with her.

She took me on my first trip away from home, when I was 9, to Colorado. She took me on my second trip, when I was 11, to Ireland. Other trips we took were to Niagra Falls and South Dakota...but we had plans for many more. She was there for every special event in my life - birthdays, holidays, proms, graduations, picking out my wedding dress, wedding day, and she wanted more than anything to be there when Lucas was born.

For about 7 years, 16yrs old to when I moved to Raleigh at 23yrs old, we would meet for lunch almost every week. Our favorite places were Crackel Barrel, Olive Garden and Ruby Tuesday. If we were at the mall we would then take a stroll through the department store - probably her favorite place on earth! After I moved to Raleigh we would talk almost every day.

I'm very lucky to have had such a special relationship with my Grandmother.

Here are some pictures of our special times...

2001 - Stone Mtn Park celebrating my dad's birthday

2001 - Big Ed's in Raleigh. This was Grandmother's first visit to Raleigh. She had read about a breakfast place run by this guy called "Big Ed", so we had to go there for breakfast. Every time we talked about her coming to Raleigh we would say that we would have to go to Big Ed's again.

2002 - shopping for wedding dresses. Grandmother bought my wedding dress for me. She wanted to help out with such a special part of the wedding...

2003 - Grandmother's second visit to Raleigh. We posed like this when she visited in 2001, so we had to replicate the pose this visit. We were always doing silly things like that.

2004 - Here we are at Wesley's 1st birthday party

2006 - Here is Grandmother meeting Lucas. This was a great day because Grandmother had been talking about "Baby Schrades" ever since Jeff and I had been dating. Before we knew the gender, she would call the baby "Little Prince Charming" or "Shanna Jr."