My Gram

My Gram Beach was my best friend, my confidant.  She always had a way of making everything OK.  When I became pregnant with H, I thought my mom would kill me.  I was 21 and not married.  I went to my grandmother crying, told her the news and she gave me the biggest hug and told me it was wonderful.  She was so excited to be a great-grandmother again.  She loved unconditionally.  I loved her more than anything.  To this day when I think about her, my heart swells with happiness.    

I was thinking today how she lives on in my heart.    
She would help anyone....including animals.  She was always taking in strays. I remember finding a malnourished  kitten with a broken tail on our way home from school one day.  When we took it home, my mom said "we aren't keeping it" but I called my Gram and guess who nursed the cat back to health and kept it for us.  She was amazing.  Who else would let us dig in the dirt with her utensils.  She said "its only dirt, it washes off."  She let us build forts, dress up and put on shows and always let us explore the woods.  We kept salamanders in her baking dishes with her cut pantyhose over the top so they couldn't escape.  She made us "play clothes" to keep at her house.  My mom never wanted us dirty, but my gram knew we loved to go out the bush and get muddy.  She would make us change, have my Pap take us out the back in his truck, put the tailgate down and let us drag our feet through the mud puddles. She would hose us off, we'd get showered and back into the clothes we had on and my mom never knew we were mud from head to toe when she picked us up!  We had the best childhood!

Her death was the most painful thing I have ever had to endure.  I was thinking about all the nice things people said about her at her funeral. One particular person stands out, Tom.  He stood in front of my father (I was standing beside him) his parents by his side, and told my father what a great woman my grandmother was.  He said they were always at her house, eating, playing, stealing her cigs, and if they got hurt or in trouble, wherever they were, they never went home because they knew they'd get whooped, they always came to her first, because she never got mad, she just fixed things.

I am so much like her!  I have a house full of kids most days.  My house is where the kids come to play, have snacks, drinks, sometimes dinner.  My garage is their cave.  Toys strewn in the garage and basement.  They run the alley and play in the field.  I have a huge first aid supply because I am who they come to when they get hurt.  My boys have sleepovers all the time.  Their friends are always asking to sleep here.

I am very compassionate and worry way too much about other people's happiness, sometimes forgetting about my own, but that's exactly how my grandmother was.  I have become my grandmother and that makes me so happy!  I hope when my children and maybe one day grandchildren, look back on their life, they remember all the little things I do and their hearts swell with happiness.

My Pap & Gram with the great-grandchildren not long before she passed.