-When I was little and not yet in preschool, Grandma used to babysit me and Logan while Mom worked. We'd go in the morning, and I'd get to sit in the big armchair and watch Sesame Street and Mr. Dressup. And at about 10:30, Grandma would give me a snack. It was always a juice box and usually some awesome thing like Dunkaroos or mini ritz bits that Mom never bought. So basically it was awesome.

-Grandma used to be a first and second grade teacher, and she actually taught me how to read out of those old school readers.

-One time, Grandma got this plastic cat lawn ornament for her flower bed. But then I fell in love with it, and refused to stop playing with it. She ended up giving it to me, and I named him Scatters and slept with it. Truth.

-Whenever I would have sleepovers at Grandma's house, I would always have cheese whiz on toast and pink milk for breakfast. Neither tasted good anywhere else. Grandma made a mean cheese whiz toast.

-Sometimes when Grandma was kinda grouchy and/or in the middle of canning season, I would steal her cane, hunch over, and say in a raspy voice, "Oooooh! My aching baaaaack!". She ALWAYS chuckled.

-She called me Miss Muffet until I was about ten

-Apparently as a baby I stubbornly refused to call her "grandma" and instead insisted upon calling her "Guckie". Once I learned of this, I'd use it whenever I wanted to get on her nerves.

-During church, when Grandma wasn't playing piano, she'd always sit in the back row. My family sat in the row in front of her, but I'd never sit with them. I was always in the back row with Grandma, colouring, and scrounging for snacks in her purse, and generally getting into trouble with her.

-In the first grade, I don't remember what the night was called, but it was around Christmas time, and I brought my grandma to the school and we made crafts together at one of the stations. It was a little candle holder made out of a baby food jar with tissue paper modge podged on the outside and a snowflake button glued on for good measure. That little jar is still sitting in her craft room today.

-Grandma loved salt and vinegar chips, and she usually had a bag of them near her chair in the livingroom.

-While mornings were reserved for cartoons when I was there, after lunch was Grandma's TV time. She loved game shows and soap operas. Whenever Grandpa wasn't watching the news or Cops, that's what was usually on the TV.

-Grandma's holiday family dinners were the stuff of legends. Seriously. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter her dining room table looked like a Norman Rockwell painting.

-Grandma was always amazingly supportive of anything musical I did. She came to choir concerts when she could, and berated me for not continuing piano, and would always ask how the singing was going. When she was in the hospital in Saskatoon, my mom called me and told me that although Grandma was incoherent a lot of the time, she often asked if I was coming soon to sing to her. I recorded a CD on my laptop, nothing fancy or anything, just five little songs, and mailed it to them. Mom says whenever she was having a hard day, moaning from pain, they would pop the CD in, and she'd instantly calm down. It played non-stop the last few days before she died.

-Grandma sent me letters once a month after I moved away from home. She never missed, and they only stopped when she got sick.


When I was seven, I remember being out in the garden with her. She was particularly achy and under the weather and I asked her to play with me. She told me that she was too old, and that she didn't think she'd be around much longer. Kind of a lot for a seven year old to process. It's probs why I'm in therapy. Just kidding. I'm so grateful that she was wrong and that I got to spend twenty years of my life with her. She was there when I was born, when I was blessed, when I started school, when I got baptized, when I had my first choir solo, when I graduated, when I left for University... and though she won't be there for many other big things, I know she's okay. She's healthy and perfect. She's been reunited with her mom and dad. And she's met Jesus, which is kind of amazing. I miss her so terribly that it aches sometimes, but I'm comforted by the sweet assurance that she is watching over us, and getting to know my future children and that they are getting badgered and spoiled by their sassy ginger great-grandma. Thank heaven for eternal families.