My Grandmother

My grandmother recently passed away on July 7th.  She lived to be 90 years old and lived a very full and happy life. We knew she wasn’t in the best of health of late, but hearing the news was still difficult.  I know that to my dad and mom, her death is very difficult and brings about many feelings, some similar to mine, and some, I’m sure, different than mine.  For me, it meant I no longer had grandparents.  A generation I grew up with as a child was now gone from my life.  It’s a strange feeling and difficult to describe.

I’ve said this before, but in my mind, my parents are my current age and I’m still 20 years old. The reality however is that I am much older than that, as are my parents and my brother and my cousins and my aunts and uncles.   Time has passed so very quickly.  

With her passing, my parents are now the grandparents of the family for my children as my grandmother and other grandparents were for me.   I haven’t really put my head around that yet and don’t know if there’s really an easy way to accept that.   It’s just weird, for lack of a better word.  

For me, the memories I have of my grandma are so vivid and clear.  She always dressed up and NEVER wore a pair of jeans (at least that I know of).  She loved dessert and coffee and never uttered an unkind word about anyone.  She and I had many conversations about God’s plan for my life while I was in college and she always had the milk in a glass pitcher in the fridge instead of the carton it came in. I stole cookies from the deep freezer that she spent days making and know she knew, but never spoiled our fun of sneaking around.

I know I will always have those memories and no one can take them from me and I find comfort in that, but it doesn’t mean I won’t miss her.  I miss all my grandparents.  I also find comfort in knowing that she is with my grandpa now, at peace, and probably sipping a cup of coffee with a slice of cherry pie with ice cream on the side.

I wish blessings and prayers to her and my family as we continue to get up each day and make new memories for our children and our children’s children one day.  The stories will be passed down and the photos will be shared and maybe one day, my grandchild will ask me to tell the story of me stealing cookies from the freezer. I will smile and tell them how my grandmother spent days baking cookies in these little…

Great Grandma Josie

My Great Grandmother, Annie Maria Josephine Ecklund Anderson, or Grandma Josie to us, never sent a text in her life. She was born in 1892 and didn’t watch American Idol, or check her e-mail three times a day.  Nor did she Skype her family thousands of miles away, and I am most certain she never did a Google search for an apple pie recipe. What would she think of our lives and our lifestyles of speed and instantaneously satisfying our every need right then and there?  Would she think all of this was good?

I have to admit; I have sent a text, watched AI (as it’s called by its followers), checked my e-mail four times during a day, Skyped my family and friends, and most certainly have searched Google for an apple pie recipe.  Does this make my life less meaningful? Does all this technology disconnect me, at some deeper level, from family and friends?  That’s a tough question.  There are days I would say I am extremely bothered by all of the texting, emailing, etc., and then there are days that I’m so grateful for having access to it.

In the perfect world, I think combining the eras would be ideal, at least for me.  I would love to have regular meals with my neighbors and friends and catch up on the weeks’ events because that’s just what you do.  I know I would enjoy cleaning out the barn on a Saturday together as a family and then having homemade ice cream that we all took turns cranking, then coming inside to Skype with family about their busy day and actually see their smiling faces.  We could then e-mail pictures of the new kitten we found alongside the road to family after a day of fishing in the creek (a mile away - that we walked to). 

I think it’s the extremes that we question. Some make us want to be completely unplugged and others make us feel grateful for advancement in the world of all things techy.  Like many of you, I don’t like hearing a phone ring while I’m out to dinner with family, and often feel disconnected from people when they are carrying on a conversation with you while checking their e-mails on their phones.  And, I am truly happy to buy my milk at the store rather than milking the cows in the barn for hours to get it.  I also enjoy being able to drive somewhere in my car and it take ten minutes instead of planning every trip to town then having to harness the horse to the wagon when it’s snowing and eight below.

It all comes down to how you use technology and to what extreme. We all know this, but don’t always stay ever-present in that fact. I’m guilty of going overboard on a given day with my computer, but do try to take a step away and do things with family that doesn’t require a charger or the car adaptor.  I do.  We do.  We can’t lose sight of the times when life was very simple; drinking sweetened iced tea with neighbors when it’s hot out and playing cards together instead of watching TV or sending that all important e-mail before we kiss each other good night.  I don’t want to ever hear my children tell their children a story about the time their mom got a funny e-mail.  “It was a Saturday, when my mom got a long e-mail from one of her friends…”.  Never.  Ever.