I love you Grandma!

Greetings, and Dear Cynthia,

First, a big thank you to all of you for your kind "get well" wishes for my seven year old! I am happy to report that he was doing much better on Tuesday afternoon...

...just in time for my dh to arrive home from work with a fever...so he stayed home yesterday (Wednesday), giving us a "full house", because both kids were home, too, due to the huge amount of snow we got. From everybody's comments on my last post, I think that these illnesses make us "normal", as it seems like everybody is struggling with one bug or another, and multiple bugs in many cases... AAUGH! Did I mention the snow? It's worth saying twice. I think we got about 13 inches and set a record or something....

As of this morning, the snow had been moved to more convenient places, the schools are in session, and our family seems to be *well*, so hopefully we're back in business...

Just a quick, non-knitting post today. This past Tuesday evening, my grandma went to sleep peacefully. She was 96 years old. She was born in Milwaukee. She married my grandpa in 1937 at the age of 25, which, in those days, was a little bit "old" to be getting married, though as she told the story, it was clearly her choice to wait. (She was extremely independent!) She was quite a dancer, and loved going out dancing, which I think is how she met my grandpa. Here she is, dancing at my wedding in 1996:She smiled and laughed easily, and was a little bit on the "goofy" side, which is one of my favorite traits in people. Here she is at my brother's wedding, "posing" for this photo after we put a bunch of empty drink glasses in front of her:I thought that if I ever had a daughter, I would want to name her Lillian, after my grandma.

She was industrious, hard working, and wanted all of her grandchildren to be happy. She hosted Christmas and Easter family gatherings for years, rising early in the morning on those days to prepare the meals and other treats. I have many happy memories from childhood of family days spent at Grandma and Grandpa's house with my cousins.

She was also very fashionable, a fine seamstress, and she dabbled in knitting. In her prime, she and her sister in law sewed the window treatments for the governor's mansion in Madison. Our love for making things is an interest we shared. Whenever I showed her something I made, she always told me that it was "beautiful". I made some "Grandma's Favorite" dish rags and gave them to her once, and she thought they were so lovely and wanted to learn to make them, too. So, when she came to visit me and stayed in my apartment during my single days in Fort Wayne, we spent the evening knitting and I taught her how to make the dish rags.

She had Alzheimer's for the past five (or more) years, and hasn't known who I am for at least the past three years. Her death has been expected for some time, though when I learned this week that she was gone, I still had to process the "finality" of it all. Mostly, I feel so fortunate to have had a grandma just like her. As her posterity celebrates her life tomorrow at the funeral and luncheon, I know we'll have lots and lots of laughter as we talk about our happy times with Grandma!

Warm regards,
Laura (YarnThrower)