She's not that old...

Until late 2009, I was blessed to have 5 generations of women living in my family. My children will have memories that include having a great-great grandmother.

When my great-grandma Sweetie died, people said she had lived a long, lovely life - and she did. Maybe it's the word "great" in front of her title for me, but she always seemed grandmotherly and older. (Actually, it was probably more the fact that she called me "Sandy" for the last 5 years of her life and spoke of really nothing other than a trip to the zoo and monkeys when I was a baby or her current list of medications!)

In a recent conversation with my mom, we talked about how much my grandmother (Great Grandma Sweetie's daughter) is now demonstrating the aging process. She is slowing down physically and mentally. She stumbles her words, forgets often and gets confused. Truth be told, she's getting old. This is much more of a struggle for me to see and accept than I have experienced before. I'm perpetually stuck envisioning my grandmother in her 50's and cannot wrap my brain around the fact that she is any older than that. Logic tells me she is, since I'm now in my 30's and my mom's in her 50's but my eye still sees her back then. So it becomes quite emotionally confusing to see her aging.

Since my mom was a working, single parent for a while during my early childhood, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents and I loved it. My grandma was an Avon lady to the Nth degree. She was very successful early on and I got to help her run her route, taking orders and making deliveries - quite a job for a 7 year old! My grandparents lived in a cool A-frame house on a lake, which meant fishing and swimming as much as you wanted, and usually it meant without direct adult supervision :) It also meant stoking the wood in the wood burning stove in the living room and each granddaughter (3 of us in 3 years) having her own bath and powder stuff - mine was always Lily of the Valley scented! Their house meant well water and going "into town" to get groceries which then meant all the free grapes you can eat while you were shopping! On Sunday mornings, before church, we went to the "legion" for all you can eat pancakes and on the way, I got to shift the gearshift while Grandpa operated the clutch in the truck. At some point, they put up a swing set with a huge metal slide that dumped you in between the huge trees, right into the weeds and poison ivy, but we didn't care! In fact, it was grandma that suggested we sit on sheets of waxed paper to go even faster off the end!

When did my grandma get too old to do her own makeup properly and cook huge holiday dinners? I don't get it, because when I look, I see my grandma and she looks like the memories above.


Overheard at our house:
Beebo - "Yeah, when I get a phone, I don't think I want an LG. I'd rather have a touchscreen."