Grandmother

Most of you who read this blog know that my grandmother, Connie Marie Howard, passed away last Monday. She was 87 years old.

Losing grandmother has been a little odd for me. It seems like I was just writing a post about my granddad dying, but that was two years ago. It was hard. He died suddenly of an aortic aneurism, and seeing how sad grandmother was after he was gone was pretty unbearable. With grandmother it almost seemed different. She was very sick for a long time. We knew this time was coming. When the time actually came, I was sad to lose her, but at the same time thankful that God had relieved her the pain and indignity of what her earthly life had become. We spent most of last week just spending time with family, looking through old photo albums and slides. It was a good time spent together, and the funeral was really nice with a lot of nice things said about her.

I have a lot of memories of my grandmother, as she is the only one I have ever known. Growing up, we spent a lot of time at their farm. I can't think about her without thinking about her two favorite things: cooking and fishing. We went fishing a lot together, and I ate a lot of her food. A few years ago, when she could still see and write, my sister gave her a journal to write all of her favorite recipes in for us. I am so glad she did that, not only because we have her recipes now, but because in reading that cookbook you can also see how much grandmother loved her family. She would write comments like, "Make sure that if you are making this potato salad and Denise is eating it, that you leave out the eggs." She was so thoughtful, always thinking of others before herself.

I will miss grandmother, but I am so thankful that I have so many great memories of her. I loved her a lot.