While I was there for her funereal, I took a lot of pictures. I knew it would be the last time I was in her home and I wanted to have those images so I can go back and look at them when I am missing her.
I took pictures of things that had been in her yard for as long as I can remember, flowers that were growing in the garden she loved so much, the patio furniture where we would sit when I came to visit. The large pine trees the grew in her yard. As a child, we were told repeatedly not to play under them because we would get covered in sap, yet we still played under them and of course got covered in sap.
Walking around the yard, taking all these photographs flooded me with memories. This was the house that my Grandparents lived in most of my life. This was the yard I played in as a child, I spent weeks here in the summer as a teen, my children played in this yard. My Grandma and I would sit in her garden, both reading a book and drinking tea.The back yard is where I took the last picture of my Grandparents together before my Grandpa had to go into a nursing home after suffering multiple strokes. My Grandpa passed in 2007.
Being inside my Grandparents home without either of them there was a feeling I really can not bring it words. It just felt empty. I will never forget the wave of heart ache walking into the kitchen without being greeted by her warm hug and sweet smile. I spent a lot of time in that kitchen. Grandma always had cookies, I had countless breakfasts of squaw corn and countless dinners of the best beef stew you can imagine. There was numberless amounts of chocolate cake, even after my mom leaving strict instructions that us children were not to eat anything else that night. As I got older, I took over the cooking when I was there for a visit. It was a privilege to serve my Grandma, it was never enough to pay back all she had done for me.
Walking around the house I took a lot of pictures of the decorations. While new things were added over the years, it stayed generally the same. A lot of the birds my Grandma adored, canisters in the kitchen that had been there for a very long time, many items that are much older then I am.
My plan is to use these pictures to make some art work for my house. Most likely I will collage them, decoupage them onto wooden slabs and hang them on my wall. When I do finally get them made, I will post again, with the finished project. For now they are all on my computer and I look at them often, sometimes they bring a smile, sometimes a tear. I miss my Grandma.
No comments:
Post a Comment