Farewell Sweet Maggie

My step-grandma passed away April 28, 2013 after a long decline from Alzheimer's disease.  She came into our lives in 1991 when she and my grandpa married.  It was a second marriage for each of them, and it was much needed companionship.  She was a brilliant cook, often just cooking by instinct rather than from a recipe.  She also sewed without using patterns.  

The sad thing was that I never really got close to her until after she began to decline.  She wasn't a mean woman, just not the squishy milk-and-cookies kind of grandma.  She didn't want us to sit on the floor, roughhouse in the back yard.  I chock that up to the time she was born and raised in and not any form of malice or spite.  She loved us in her own way and we loved her back in ours.  

I will keep the sweet moments of dancing with her in the living room while Ella Fitzgerald serenaded us.  Giggling over the cute, silly things she said.  Kissing her utterly adorable nose!  

How much she loved my Grandpa.  

Mary Margaret Nightser Labouy Wildi 

1922-2013

There was a viewing, and many dear friends from the neighborhood she and my grandpa lived in came to pay their respects.  

My mother and neighborhood friend admiring Maggie's dress.

Mr. Parker and his sweet Mama!

Viewings can be weird for people.  Some people, like my fiancee find them morbid and weird.  This turned out to be a wonderful time with family and friends.  We told the best "Maggie Stories" and laughed until we cried.  It was wonderful.  We celebrated that she wasn't in pain any more, that she was at peace at last.

Maggie and her Georgie <3 p="">

Faces

3 months

11 months

18 months-2 years

3

4

5

Inspired by this project 101-Women, I was curious to see if I couldn't construct a file of my face as it ages.  Granted, I could do this by scanning and scouring my parent's picture albums, but this is what was on my harddrive.  It still strikes me to this day that I have looked in the mirror at least once a day at this same face and have watched myself age.  Not that I could put a movie together in my head, but still.  It kind of makes me want to take a portrait once a year on my birthday, perhaps, to keep track for the rest of my life.

Perhaps this is an apt wrap up for visiting my 90 year old step-grandma today.  She is 90 today!  I can only wonder if I will live that long.  Her journey is not without troubles.  She may be celebrating 90 years, but she cannot recall who she is anymore.  Nor who we are, what year it is, or who is president.  She doesn't remember.  We do though.  We go out to her with a pretty new shirt and sweater and hug and kiss her because we love her.  You can't help it, she's too darn cute.  And I sit, watching my mother spoon feed her bits of cookie soaked in milk-tea, and wonder about life, the universe, and everything.  Hoping I will have a daughter or a daughter-in-law who will love me so much as to spoon feed me cookies and sing old songs on my 90th.

A novelty and reflections on a life misplaced

First off, my new gnome lights. Yes, I bought novelty lights in the shape of little gnomes. Now my family is saying I love and collect gnomes. Let me set you straight, not really, but it's slowly turning into a minor fetish.




Yesterday I spent most of the day at my grandparents house in West Seattle. My mother's childhood home and the place of many of my childhood memories. I love my mum's room with it's french doors leading out on a little closed balcony. I love the lion's head down in the garden below. His name is Aslan, naturally.





Now it's just my grandpa living in this big house, and it feels kinda lonely without my grandma there. She's still living, but she's at an Adult Family Home where they can take good care of her with her dementia. There's bits and pieces of her still around my grandpa's home. Her perfume, make-up, clothing, jewellery and I often find myself looking through them wondering what she was like as a young girl, mother. She wasn't a milk and cookies grandma, she was strict and hard on my brothers and me. For all that, we respected her as she was and still is our grandma. I just don't know much about her, from her in her own words. On the flip-side of this is my own family who has raised me with tales of my family history. I know what my parents were like a kids, and teen-agers, adults. All the parts I wasn't present for, I've experienced through their words and stories. So I wonder, looking at my grandma's things, what was her life like before I met her? I wish I could know, I wish she could have told me. Taught me how to sew without a pattern, cook by instinct. With each thing I discover about her, I want to learn more only now she barely remembers herself. It's a sad thing, and I pray that some day I might learn more about her so I can tell her story for her, to my children, and they can tell their children in turn.

Thanksgiving...with Miss Jones

There was much feasting, turkey, cranberry sauce, black olives and dill pickles. Pumpkin pie and apple pie buried in freshly whipped cream. Sunlight and laughter, family and good times.


Cousins came to visit. Actually there's only one who visited me, but we're all cousins, so it really doesn't matter. It was rather quiet without the three older boys, and we didn't manage (or really even try) to finish off ALL the apple cider in the house, but the pear wine was excellent. Crazy hats ensued.


My father's father came too, and it was very good to see him. It's been too long since I saw him last. Here he debates with my uncle over video cameras, batteries, or something to that effect


Then on Friday there was another Thanksgiving with my mother's parents. They don't get out much anymore (largely due to my gramma's declining memory) so we brought Thanksgiving to them.


The boys learn the fine art of making whipped cream with my anxious mother hovering at the sidelines. They're both fine cooks who periodically whip up magnificent batches of biscuits and homemade bread. Me, I'm the pie crust queen, sauce maker extrodinaire, oh yes, I do killer cookies now and again.



The dining room decked out in silver and fine china and crystal.


And lastly this darling lady who is a constant part of our lives. Almost 87, my Gramma has Altzheimer's and dementia. This part of her life could be viewed as a tragic event because yes, there is huge loss of memories, stories that should be passed on to future generations, knowledge that will be lost forever, but if we looked at it that way, we'd never find the joy and beauty in anything now would we? Joy and beauty in loosing your mind? Yes. This lady used to be critical, scathing in her remarks which made is very difficult to love her as a Gramma. We tried, and were polite, but sought the solace of the backyard leaving our parents to defend us. Now this lady is the sweetest little slip of a thing on the planet. She's ranges mentally from about 6 years old to 11 or 12. You don't have to tell her the stove is hot, don't touch, but you do have to remind her to wipe her nose or finish her supper. She's constantly singing now-a-days, today's song was "Tea for Two". Little lyrics are quoted often repetitively, but if you know the song, she'll belt it right along with you. "Jukebox Saturday Night" and "Do You Know Miss Jones?" are also part of the repertoire. As a child who grew up in the generation of the Backstreet Boys, N'Synch, and The Spice Girls, I welcome the new-to-me-but-familiar-to-her songs. It's part of her past and in the future I'll think of dancing with her to them as I listen, to her faltering alto half singing, half humming to tunes along with me. And I'll miss her. For now, I'm soaking it all up. The pretty with the ugly. Keeping the memories of this precious lady tucked deep in a special corner of my heart.