Birthday Cake and Cotton Candy

It took me awhile sitting at the computer this morning to try and write today's post, primarily because its one of the harder posts to write this year.  You see, in two days it would have been my grandma's birthday.  Her 97th birthday.  As I sat thinking about what to write I though about her last birthday...her birthday last year while she was in a nursing home going through rehab for pain she was having in her hip.  It was a surprise party...and boy was she surprised!  She was so surprised that she cried tears of happiness and as I reflect on it today, probably tears of sadness.  Why tears of sadness?  As I think about it, I believe that she knew somehow that it would be her last birthday with all of us.

 

This week's color is Cotton Candy and was donated by Avon and was donated by Cathy Jimenez of New Carlisle, IN, chosen because of its soft color...a color my grandma would have worn and the color of her favorite pink sweater.

 

There were so many times as kids that my grandma would speak of not being around.  At first should would say that she wouldn't be around to see me make my first communion.  Then it was that she wouldn't see me make my confirmation, graduate from high school, go to college, or even graduate from college.  Then she said she didn't think she'd be alive long enough to see me get married.  Grandma was 87 when I got married so I know that was pushing it!  But she was there.  Grandma always hoped and said she wanted to be there when I would have my first child.  It was the first time that she didn't say she "wouldn't be there."  But she passed away never did get to see that.

 

While its a sad time and trying to remember a good time is hard, I have thought about all the birthdays we had had for Grandma over the years and as I look back at a couple pictures, I am reminded how she loved a party...especially a birthday party.  It was she who took me out and shopping the day my parents got me a waterbed as a surprise gift for my birthday when I was in 8th grade.  It was the first bed that was all mine and bought especially for me.   It was also grandma who planned and help keep secret my mom's retirement party 7 years ago. (Grandma always thought she would spill the beans as she couldn't keep a secret she said!)  All in all the thing that she enjoyed was not so much the party itself but the fact that all of her family was together.  Grandma was the youngest of 9 children (Two of her siblings...a set of twins died as babies.) For all of Grandma's life, and as we look back at pictures of her having her weekly card game with her siblings or riding a bicycle as a toddler with her two brothers hanging on to it, it was clear that family was the most important thing to her.  She would be just as upset as the rest of us when family would fight or argue.  Even when we had squabbles she tried to get us to become peacemakers.  Grandma may have been stubborn and even forgetful in her older age, but she was definitely wise.  Wise enough to know that without family, we have nothing.

 

This Monday, to celebrate her birthday, a couple of my siblings and I are going to go play Bingo at Holy Family Church.  She loved playing Bingo and loved playing it mostly at Holy Family.  It was always about family.  It's where many of her Grandchildren went to church or had attended school.  It's where many of us would gather for 5:00 mass on a Saturday night with her and my parents when she was living on the west side of town.  The name said it all...Holy Family.  It was always about family.

 

This week I take that with me to help me through the loss. Leukemia may have taken her body from us but it can't take her memory. 

 

Grandma....I love and miss you.  Happy Birthday.

 

Grandma at her surprise 96 th birthday party

 

 

 

 

Cotton Candy by Avon, Donated by Cathy Jimenez of New Carlisle

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bubbles...Tiny Bubbles

As a child I often spent time living at my grandma's house whether it was on a day off when my mom was working or on the weekends and summers when I could spend multiple days to weeks at a time at her house.  After my Grandfather passed away in 1979 I spent more and more time with my Grandma.  Each evening (I don't remember which day it was on for certain) that the Lawrence Welk show was on my Grandma would turn it on and sit down...not matter what she was doing...and watch it.  I often times remember her saying that we had to finish washing dishes quickly so that could sit and watch it.  Often at the end of the show Lawrence Welk would stand up and flick his band leader baton and all the singers and dancer and others would come out and dance to the song "Tiny Bubbles in my Wine" and bubbles would come out from behind the band and fill the dance floor with bubbles.  As I would look at my Grandma she would be smiling and tearing up both at the same time.  I could tell that she missed my Grandpa.

 

This week's 50 Shades of Pink color is called Pink Bubbles by LA Colors and donated by Lynn Hudak of South Carolina.  Lynn also happens to be my cousin's wife!  Thank you Lynn for the awesome pink nail polish this week!  I chose this color because of its vivid and bright hue but also because of its name.

 

Preparations for my Grandma's funeral back in January led us to looking through album after album and box after box to locate pictures to put up or put on a video.  As I looked at pictures I found one of my Grandma and my first Grandpa, Clem WInkiewicz, that is to this day my favorite.  In the picture, my Grandpa was looking straight ahead, but when looking at the picture its actually a profile of him.  My grandma is looking at him with a smile.  You can see in the picture from the look in her eyes and on her face that she truly loved my Grandpa...that he completed her.  While she married again several years after my Grandpa had passed away, she never could look at my new Grandpa in that same way.  Grandpa Clem would always and forever be her first love.  It was Grandpa Clem who she would hold close and dance with, resting her head on his shoulders.  When she would watch Lawrence Welk and watch the people dancing I could see in her eyes the memories of her and Grandpa dancing together.  Those memories were the ones that she would recall to me a few weeks before her diagnosis when she would claim that Grandpa was there with her in her apartment.  Grandma loved two men in her life as husbands but I know that in her heart, my Grandpa Clem was the one that she danced with in her dreams every night.

 

This week's nail polish is no accident.  It was meant to be that I would get this sent to me so that I myself too would remember what that true feeling of love feels like as I look at my husband and know that even though we may have tough and rough times, that he completes me. 

 

Grandpa Clem and Grandma (unknown year)

 

 

Pink Bubbles by LA Colors donated by Lynn Hudak

 

 

Take a Byte

At the ripe age of 96, my Grandma had been alive to see the development of many different things that we at our young age take for granted.  When my grandma was born, and even as a young girl, the idea of computers, cell phones, smart phones, and HDTV's amongst other technologies that we have now, were not even fathomed.  My grandma, as my brother would inform us, not only saw the invention of the computer, cell phone, smart phone,and HDTV but also the microwave oven, the dishwasher, television, PEZ candy, Bubble gum, the 8-track tape, the cassette tape, the CD, the MP3 player, the VCR and VCR tapes, the DVD player and DVD's,  the Slinky, the Turboprop engine, the first successful Helicopter, the Atomic Bomb, Velcro, and even the first boxed cake mix.  Needless to say, as technology has advanced, so has my grandma.  While at one point she did have a cell phone (that she barely used except to call family in other states,) she never did own a computer and the thought that you could use a machine thinner than a notebook to call and visually see someone in another state or country live, really blew her mind away.  If you asked her what a byte was, she'd probably tell you it was the thing that you did with your teeth and food!

 

 

So what does a Byte have to do with this week's 50 Shades of Pink for Gertie?  This week's color of Pink is called Byte!  Go figure!  This week's 50 shades of Pink color was donated by Cathy Jimenez.  It is bold, glittery,deep, and even a bit whimsical.  The name itself was the reasoning behind my choice this week as it reminded me of a recent story of my grandma.  As Grandma's health deteriorated and she fell into the coma for the week before she passed, my mom and whomever was around to help, would give her the oral medication to keep her comfortable or to swab and clean her mouth.  At one point, my mom asked Grandma to open her mouth to do this and somehow my mom got her fingers too close to Grandma's mouth and grandma bit down on to my mom's fingers.   As mom told the story we all laughed as I am sure that grandma was doing. While the two words have totally different meanings, when I saw the name of the nail polish I knew I had to do it. 

 

Its hard to believe that it's been a month since she passed.  The memories of those last two weeks seem just like yesterday. For now I will look at my fingers and remember he taking a bite out of my mom and still laugh just a little.

 

 

Thank you goes out to Cathy Jimenez for the donation of Byte!, a Sally Hanson color that

was chosen for this week's 50 Shades of Pink for Gertie color.



Blink

Back several years ago when my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, my brother played a video with a song on it that my parents had found that summed up the last 50 years of their marriage.  The song was called, "Don't Blink" by Kenny Chesney.  In the song, Kenny sings about an old man being interviewed on the evening news and he had just turned 102 years old.  The news man asks him what his secret to life is and the man says not to blink because at one point you are six years old and then you take a nap and you are now twenty-five and married and then next thing you know fifty years has gone by.  The idea is that if you blink you may miss all of your life and not see all around you.  In other words, live life and remember everything...the good memories and the bad memories...because we don't really know how much life we have.

 

This is my fourth 50 Shades of Pink week for my Grandma and the color of my pink nail polish really goes along with the topic well for this week.  My nail color this week is Pink Blink.  This is a nail color that I had purchased recently.  When I saw the name of the nail color, the blog post for this week was already forming in my head...and that is how I knew I had to buy that color.  So, how does this nail color, other than the color itself, relate to memories of my grandma?

 

So many people have said, as they have offered statements of sympathy,  "well, she was 96....she had lived a long happy life."  It has bothered me so much when people have said that as she was my grandma....I wanted her to live forever.  I know that's not possible, but somewhere along the line it feels that I must have blinked.  I am 39.  The same age my mom was when my grandma's first husband, my first grandpa, passed away.  I was 6 at the time.  While I have all sorts of great memories of my grandma through the years I always thought there would be more.  Time for more.  When she was diagnosed with the Leukemia on December 22nd and we were told we had weeks to months with her, I knew we had to make every memory last.  That weeks to months diagnosis turned into a days to weeks diagnosis a week later and within a few days of that it was days to hours.  Somewhere in those two weeks she was with us, (and only one week was she not comatose....), I blinked.  And then she was gone.  And now...in three days...it will be officially one month since she passed. In twenty-three days she would have turned 97.  Yes...I still grieve.  Sometime I think its because I feel somewhere along the line I must have blinked.

 

Today isn't just a pink nails day though. Today at the Notre Dame Women's Basketball game they celebrate the Pink Zone.  The Pink Zone is the Women's Basketball world's way of bringing awareness to Cancer in Women, with it primarily being about Breast Cancer.  While my grandma died of blood cancer and not breast cancer, today I and my niece will be sporting special pink shirts with angel wings on them in memory of my Grandma at this game.  Grandma loved Angels.  But she also loved to have fun.  One memory that I am fortunate to even have a picture of is when my grandma attended a Women's Notre Dame Basketball game a few years ago and they had handed out Pom Poms, noise makers, and hats that were a lime green color. (It may have been a  New Year's Eve game even.)  Grandma sported the pom poms in her hair, the hat on her head, and whatever else that showed her spirit and support of the team and took a picture.  The greatest part of the picture is her happy smile.  It's a silly picture but one who showed that Grandma wasn't blinking....she was making memories.  One that she would tell me about for years to come.

 

Recently I heard a story from the birth mom of one of the children (that we had been foster parents for recently).  This little 3 1/2 year old had gotten to know "Busia" (as she was known to the Great Grandchildren) and had the opportunity to be at her bedside a couple times before the little girl went home to her birth mom two days before my Grandma died.  "Princess" as we called this little girl, had gone to the bedside when Grandma was in her coma already and told Grandma that she hoped she would get better but that if she couldn't that she could go be an Angel and that it would be ok.  This from a 3 1/2 year old little girl!  After the children went home that Thursday I went and asked my Grandma (even though she was in a coma) that if she were to pass away and go to heaven that she would be the guardian angel to the two little ones that we had loved so much that had returned home.  She couldn't respond and I wondered if she really heard me.  This week, my husband and I had the opportunity to go sit and visit with the kids and their birth mom when the mom told us a story about how Princess would wake up in the middle of the night and draw a picture and then go back to sleep.  A couple (2-3) nights after they returned to live with her, Princess woke up in the middle of the night and drew and colored a picture of a ghost like figure and then draw and colored a picture of an Angel before going back to sleep.  This had been the Saturday night/Sunday morning after my Grandma had passed. Less then 24 hours after she had passed.

 

I know now that I didn't blink these last 39 years....I have more memories than I have room in my brain for....but the loss of future memories is where the sadness comes from.  I know I am blessed for the 39 years of memories I have.  Today as I wear my pink shirt with the angel wings, I know that she will be with me.  My angel by my side.  And don't worry...I won't blink.

 

 

                               Pink Blink by Sally Hansen Nail, courtesy of myself!