-A digital camera... that prints POLAROIDS.

-Crafting? Candy? Llamas? These are a win times 3.

-An old flyer from the U.S. Forest Service that unintentionally is good advice for life.

-This:

-A nicer way to express displeasure.

-Aaaand finally, I want this hanging on my wall!

What? It's not Lent time? Well, then I guess I don't have any creative excuses for my lengthy hiatus...

-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.

The weekend of the funeral came. I drove down with Uncle Marcel and Aunt Clara- my Grandpa Froc's brother and his wife. Or rather, they drove down with me, because I drove most of the way. haha. The trip was long, and I spent most of it trying not to think about what awaited me at home, and listening to the same "Classic Country Hits of the Fifties" CD about five times. If ANYONE tries to buy me that CD for Christmas, I WILL mail you an infectious disease.

The sibs were excited to see me when I walked in the house, but there was an unfamiliar heavy atmosphere inside. The older boys hugged me, but said little. Clay and Sarah were about normal, but a little quieter. Dad was at the chapel working to get things ready for the next day, and Mom was equally preoccupied between home and phone calls and meals. (Seriously, Mr. Pope? Make them honorary saints?)

On Friday night, all of us except Clay got dressed up and went to the funeral home for the viewing. In my opinion, a viewing is the worst idea ever. It's like a second funeral. Except worse because at this one you have to stare at a body while being serenaded by this awful medley of love songs in the style of an eighties' ballad.

I slid into the bench with my family, right behind Grandpa and Aunt Michelle (dad's sister), Uncle Marcel and Aunt Clara, and Auntie Sharon (grandma's sister). We sat there quietly, and I tried so hard not to look ahead. But I did. And there was Grandma. It reminded me of watching her sleep in her hospital bed. I waited and waited for her chest to rise and fall again. But it didn't.

It was probably like only an hour we were there, but it felt like an eternity. Grandpa had left, as had my dad's brother and sister. My mom turned to me. "Do you want to go up and see her?" I shook my head, wide-eyed. "Honey, you need to." I gingerly left my seat and followed my parents. The woman in the casket kind of looked like my grandma, and logically I knew of course it was, but... it was just a shell. There was no life, no spirit in that body. It wasn't really Grandma.

The next morning the kids all woke up, only to discover both of our parents were gone. In a panic, I called both of the cell phones, hoping and praying they hadn't taken off and gotten in some horrible accident. (That's me. Anxiety Girl. Jumping to the worst conclusions in a single bound.) They were both doing last minute prep at church. We got dressed. No one really ate lunch. We headed to the church.

Having never attended a funeral before, I wasn't sure what to expect. But it was really nice. Dozens of bouquets of flowers were everywhere from people that knew our family, and even some that just cared about my immediate family. The chapel was packed to the gills with people, and we actually had to put up a tent and run live video to it to accomodate everyone that came. We sat in the first row, right in front of the pulpit.  Auntie Sharon gave Grandma's eulogy. Daddy gave a beautiful talk. Then I sang. I knew I was going to have to sing ages ago, because my grandparents had both mentioned it. I'd never really given it much thought though. There was a song that my mum had said Grandma requested, but I didn't know it. Instead, I had the feeling that I should sing this:

Grandma had pretty much been in the hospital since February. Eventually she got too sick to stay in the hospital in Melfort. (Melfort's hospital basically sucks anyway, but that's a different story.) She was moved to a hospital in Saskatoon, the closest city, where there she could have access to the specialists she needed.

On August 19, I picked up the phone about half an hour before church started. It was my dad. With a forced evenness to his voice he said, "I'm calling to let you know that grandma passed away early this morning." My stomach sank and I started to feel tears coming. "She passed away in her sleep at about 2 AM. It's the way she would have wanted it."