this is me...the baby that is. i must have been just a few months old when this was taken. you can see my brother sitting next to me. the one holding me...that is my grandma - my dad's mom. we had an interesting relationship to say the least.
last weekend i was at my parents house and started digging through a box of pictures. when i found this one i had to have it. for those of you who know me well, you might think it odd. let me tell you about my grandma...and i'll start with what i remember...
this grandma lived with us from time to time. when she did, she poured orange juice on her cereal. she ate applesauce on her toast. she ate cold fried chicken (she loved the extra crispy from KFC) and cold corn on the cob. she would set her teeth on the table while she ate. she watched wheel of fortune and jeopardy and she crocheted - LOTS!!!!
but i never thought she liked me. she would often tell me i was fat and ugly. and would tell me i needed a spanking. even when i was 20 and visited her in the nursing home she would tell me to come over for a spanking. i was never as good as my cousin in her eyes. while i laughed about it, it did bother me. i would hear my siblings talk about all the fun they had with grandma and i never had that. i couldn't figure out why she didn't like me.
a few years back, my dad was given a box of her belongings. she was a journal writer - something i love. she had these diaries and i borrowed them. i read each entry, twice....and i got to know my grandma. i'd been told i just never knew her. that she changed when my grandpa died, a few years before i was born. these diaries opened my eyes to an amazing woman. she was a teacher. she wanted a baby and couldn't seem to have one. when an adoption fell through she was devastated....but then someone left my newborn father at the hospital. her minister called and she told the principal she needed to go pick up her baby. just like that. she took my dad and gave him a home. later God blessed her with 2 daughters. she served and gave to others.
by the time i came around she wasn't in good shape physically. she used a cane/walker and sat in the chair a lot. she broke her leg at our house one time. i sat with her while we waited for 911. she was a stubborn woman. a strong woman. even in her death - it was quite the event - twice! just ask me...
but those journals became my eyes to see my grandma. she did love me, she just had lost a little bit of herself. i still have the orange and yellow afghan she made me as a child. we all have one. she made us oodles of crotched magnets. and oodles of hotpads. that was how she showed her love. through her gifts. she crotched each one with love and it is what she could do.
i recently told my mom i wanted to be the one to keep those journals. i wanted to read them again. i wanted to see more of my grandma. and even though she may have thought i was fat and ugly (joking here!) i believe she was a woman of great love - even for me!
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