My Grandma

I’d like to tell you about my grandma.  Most people wait for funerals and obituaries to write things like this.  Before I scare anyone too badly (aunts, uncles, and cousins!), let me say that my grandma is still very much alive.  She’s had diabetes for as long as I can remember, she’s been in an ambulance a lot more times than I have, and she doesn’t feel exactly healthy most of the time.  But she’s very much alive.

I like my grandma.

I like my grandpa too.

They’ve been married now for 64 years, if I’m doing my math right . . . and I might not be.  My grandpa was 18 when they married.  Grandma was 16.  They eloped.  I was in their house this morning.  They still have their Marriage License in a frame on their bedroom wall.  Sixty-four years later.  That alone is impressive.

They had eight kids (my mom being the oldest), and they’ve got so many grands and great-grands by now, I think they’re the only ones who know the real number.  I lost count somewhere around 30.

They love telling stories of their growing up year.  “We were just kids playing house,” Grandma always says.  Their first house was a tiny little thing that didn’t have any running water.  They had to go outside and pump it from a well by hand.  They lived for a couple years in Hawaii and had a house there with a whole long flight of stairs you had to climb down before you could go out and up before you could come in.  Grandpa was in the Marines.  Grandma ran a knitting shop.

Grandma owns more cook books than anyone I’ve ever met.  She’s made an astounding number of tacos, survived a house fire, trained several German Shepherds, and shot the “King of the Crows.” (Don’t worry; it really was just a bird.) She likes old hymns and listening to the Gaithers.  African violets flourish in her house.  She has an iPad, and she knows how to use it.

And she’s proud of me.

I know.  She tells me all the time.

It’s rather nice having someone tell you they’re proud of you.  It’s especially nice when it comes from someone like Grandma.  It makes me proud of her too.  I don’t know many women of God like her.  I don’t think there are many who pray like that, love their husbands like that, give thanks like that, and cheer on the next generations the way she does.

So, thanks, Grandma and Grandpa, for being the grandparents that you are.  I love that you live a mile down the road from us, and I get to be here at least for a little while longer to see you.  I am so proud of you too.