Rest in Peace, Grandma Forsell

She called us home.  Not in a literal way, but she did call to us.  I thought of this as our family pilgrimage,  making plans with one another, getting in our cars to head home to Rockford and preparing to say good-bye.  My dad had been a rock through this whole thing and really held it together so we could all say good-bye at once.  My mom was rightfully with us though this had been an ex-mother -in-law for a long time...they were alike in some ways.  They could tell each off, but be friends again five minutes later.  It was hard for all of us to say this final goodbye.


A lot of memories have come to the surface in the past week.  I thought about how much fun Christmas was at my Grandparent's house.  They gave my brother and I these huge stockings with oranges the size of softballs, huge grapefruits, cans of nuts, chocolate, toys...they were more fun than the gifts.  My best memory of their house was sleeping in their back bedroom, always a little cool but heaped with warm, wool blankets, and tons of pillows.  Just as I was falling asleep there would be the sound of the grandfather clock(which is now in my house) chiming ten o'clock as they turned the news off for the night.  And then I would wake up to my Grandma's Swedish pancakes.  She had a long life, my Grandma.  99 years old.  And she could be cranky.  One time my dad had put on some boots he just bought and when my Grandma saw him, she said, "New boots?  They're ugly!"  My husband and I sometimes just shorten it and point at each others' boots yelling, "they're ugly!"

My stepdaughter, Emma, saw this picture and said, "Is that a BB gun?!!"  And I was thinking, 
"those are nice boots."

The only time we've seen my Grandma laughing! She was more of a quiet chuckler.

Grandma and my Dad

My grandma crawled into my old bed to mess with me...she was pretty tiny.

The two things I associate with my Grandma are good cooking and gardening.  She didn't talk too much about either one.  She just did them.

She was a spitfire.  

Watching a peaceful death of a human being reminds us of a falling star; one of a million lights in a vast sky that flares up for a brief moment only to disappear into the endless night forever.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Say hi to Grandpa for us.