grandma and growing up

I have posted in the past about my Mom's mother. I love that side of the family and it is glamourous in a "mountains of Kentucky" way. My Dad's side of the family is closer to home. When I think about my cousins and aunts and uncles, I think first of them. My grandmother, my Dad's mother, my last grandparent, passed away last week after several weeks in the hospital. All through the weekend of the funeral I was too busy to really think about it, or even to think much about her. Then there was a flurry of activity with family coming in, some which we haven't seen in many years, and it was good to see them. My cousins and I compared noses, and decided who had the Mease nose or not. Most of us have it. We kept saying how much my Dad and his brothers remind us of our Grandpa. I got to see my oldest friend, my cousin Christy, and not only her, but for the first time her little, four month old daughter! How amazing. A normal life schedule should and does become completely thrown over and irrelevent in times like this. You always here that you don't know when the end will come, and that you can't plan your life, and life happens when we are making other plans and all that, and it sunk in this week.

My Grandma's funeral was on Monday, and my twenty-sixth birthday was on Tuesday. One of my friends pointed out that now I am in my late twenties, to which I gave a big sarcastic "Thanks!" But the combination of the two events is sobering, and thought provoking. I am an adult now. One way I know this is that the thing I want more than anything in the world is an outdoor clothesline. Another way I know this is on Tuesday night, my birthday, after Bible study, the thing that I wanted most of all was to go grocery shopping because I had just gotten paid, and there was no food in my cupboards. Zero. Nothing. Finally, there is the lawn. The big, thick, verdant lawn. Every week until October, I will be mowing it, and there is no managing or controlling it. I have written about mowing the lawn in the past, and not much has changed, except that I think there are more dandelions.

But all these pieces are fitting together in my mind. The lawn, the funeral, four month old Abigail, the clothesline in the sun, my birthday grocery shopping, the quilt that my grandmother's mother made that is now folded in my cedar chest. These feel like the most real things in my life. I want to take care of these things, and tend them like the sprouts in my garden. I want to make sure that what should be important stays important. I have allowed my life to get too busy and too cluttered, mainly with good things, but mainly because I have not wanted to let anyone down. I am not sure what I will be doing about this, as far as how these thoughts will play out in real life, but I will be thinking and praying about it. Maybe I am just coming off of a stressful time, and will be able to bounce back, and will need and want some action soon too. But right now I'd rather just be here at home.

But if there is anyone out there who is into lawn mowing... ;-)