My sweet grandmother, at the amazing age of 93 passed away in early May. Most in my circle know how important she is to me and how spending time with her both as a child and as an adult (and mother) has been so special for me. When I say I want to be her when I grow up, it is the truest words I can probably say. Her warm, welcoming nature combined with a little fire and wit is a combination that won many over but also allowed her to raise a giant family and network of humans that also care for each other deeply.

Once she went into hospice care, family came from all over to be with her….which was her wish. When asked what she wanted to talk about with 20+ family members surrounding her, she weakly pointed to herself and said “me.” (Maybe I got my enneagram 3 genes from her???). We all gathered around, feeling the weight of sadness but got to be entertained by her humor and joyful non-verbal expressions for hours on her last night of lucid-ness.

I have been honored to experience death and it’s sorrowful, yet sacred beauty at multiples times in my life and this time, it was no different. Her life was honored….it ended surrounded by the family and love that she deserved and it made me appreciate the generation of cousins that I was born into. I loved connecting with those that I live further from and planning get-togethers so we can stay connected in the future. Bonded by our upbringing in a family that my grandparents built with love, trust, and doses of values and expectations (that probably wasn’t always valued as positive things by all who received them).

I got to create the tribute slideshow for her which was magical for me….going through years and years of meticulously organized photo albums is my happy place and I was honored to do it. If you’d like to see it, click here (the full thing is 28 minutes but there are some cringey Patti hairstyles toward the end if you’re patient).

Thank you for showering all of us with love and your legacy of kindness and faith Gramma. Hope you’re giggling and getting adored by Grampa up there.

Oodles and oodles of love,
Patti

P.S. This will be the first blog post I don’t publish and email to my sweet Gramma who didn’t want to go through all the trouble of subscribing and looking for it on her own, but also liked an personalized email from me which I appreciated.