Grandma Carol 1935-2010
There are times I think when the weather is meant to comfort and serve us in ways we didn’t know we needed. This entire weekend has been gloomy, cloud covered and chilly enough to need a jacket, but not containing enough bite to make outside miserable. Its scarf season.
This weekend my Grandma Carol passed away. She has been sick for months, with multiple cancers and without energy or strength to fight much of anything off. She has been bed ridden for a very long time, and now she is done suffering.
When I think of my grandma I think of very specific details. I have memories of her driving me around in her old nude colored jetta, with no shine and the seat covers that are made of beads. Do you know those seat covers? She always believed her arm was the best kind of seat belt, and exercised that with me frequently. She always had life savers in the roll, the multi-flavored hard candy. It was always exciting for me to break the top one off to see what the next flavor would be beneath it. Grandma and my mom and sister would all play Mexican dominoes together in Breck, and she was always one step behind, but always hilarious to play with. She made the best baked spaghetti, with giant home made meat balls and the absolute best chocolate chip cookies. They are one of those things that even if I had the recipe, which consisted of enough butter to cause early heart failure, they won’t be quite as good as Grandma’s. She always gave the weirdest gifts, things that usually became very trendy a couple months after she gave them. Although she did give my sister a Sean John shirt that said Young, Rich, and Fabulous, which never really became cool. But it still gives Meg and I get a hardy chuckle. She was always funky, always trendy. This picture of her was one from High School I think, she was beautiful. Even when she got old, she was beautiful.
My Grandma wasn’t perfect. In fact she was far from perfect. There are plenty of things I don’t understand about her, things I will never understand. But today, on this gloomy Sunday afternoon I choose to see the life savers, funky gifts, and the laughs we all had while playing Mexican Dominoes.
