what she gave

I've been writing this in my mind for a couple of days. It's hard to put into words everything that's been going on. Amazingly, the bean continues to grow, despite my sad heart. My parents came to town for one funeral, and accidentally got 2. It's been a strange week.

My grandma, Jauneta passed away this week at the hospital in the little town that she lived in since my mom was a young girl. In a month a new family will live in her house on Cascade Drive.

She was a homemaker, she made ceramics, she went to church. Still, I believe the thing that defines her is her faithfulness. She watched her first husband, my grandpa, suffer with Alzheimer's disease for a very, very long time. She faithfully visited him day after day even as he forgot who she was. She didn't let it break her heart. She kept on loving him and caring for him. This is the way that we should love. Holding nothing back. Dyeing our gray hair brown so that our beloved might recognize us. Feeding him, when he forgets how to hold a fork. Speaking for him when he can no longer speak for himself.

I think she learned how to do these things because she had practiced on her children. She loved us- the children, the grandchildren, the great-grandchildren.

I will try to teach you the things that I learned from her, baby. The crocheting, the faces, the games. I will try to love you with her kind of faithfulness.