Happy Birthday Gram!

While May 10 is the official date that Benny is coming home from the hospital, it’s also Gram’s birthday. We still celebrate it 18 years after her passing. Has it really been that long since she died?

I remember that year very well as I spent my Summer taking care of Gram, not working and uncertain what I really wanted to do with my life. I watched TV with her, talked to her, and got what she needed.

It was an emotionally draining summer for all of us. I was depressed because my college years were over and I wouldn’t take just any job. When my parents and I fought over my future, Gram was a calming voice in all of the chaos.

A lot has changed for me, for my family, and in our country since Gram passed away in 2006. In today’s blog, I’m cracking open a six-pack, talking about what I’ve done since her passing. Also, I hit on some of the big events in our world that she missed.

1. For me, I finally learned to drive. I was practicing right around the time she was sick. and got the hang of it just weeks after she had passed. Pretty soon I became independent and didn’t need to rely on someone to take me where I needed to go.
2. Barack Obama’s run for President in 2008. Gram always liked this senator from Chicago and hoped he would run as well as change history. I could have used her in 2008 when I was ostracized for wanting to vote for him. On Election Day that year, the country welcomed its first African-American President. Twelve years later, history would be made again when Senator Kamala Harris would become our first female Vice President.
3. The Great Recession. Right now, I’m reading Barack Obama’s memoir and learning about his first term in office. I know she would have loved that book as well as the ones Michelle Obama wrote. When I have time, I read it and I’m learning about how he got America through the great recession.
4. I joined Toastmasters in 2011 and continue to stick with it to this day. I got my Distinguished Toastmaster award in 2019. I think upon learning this, she would have been very proud of me.
5. Gram had an opportunity to be a great-grandmother to my oldest cousin Becca’s three sons. Six more were born throughout the 2010’s. Mom and I think Gram would have loved Annabelle as well as Lucas, Haley, Joshua, Patrick, and Henry.
6. I went to Disney World in the fall of 2015. My cousin planned this trip for a long time and finally saw her dream become a reality. I made the most of that week down there and got to visit all four of the parks in Disney World. Next time, I want to go to Universal and check out Harry Potter’s Wizarding World.

There’s many more but I think she’d have loved hearing about and learning of all these events. I’m curious about her reaction to the pandemic and what it would have been.

I don’t think Gram would have liked #45 at all when he took office in November 2016. In fact, that’s all I’m going to say about that one. I started to blog in late 2019, and finally stopped looking back at the college years before that. Gram would have been blessed to see how many of her grandchildren love to write. Hey, I started reading Harry Potter in 2023. My cousins have read the books and now I’m doing the same. I just started the sixth book this week.

How would she have felt about my “journey”? I think it would have pleased her to see me so happy and being my true authentic self.

Since Mother’s Day fell around her birthday, it was always tradition for us to have a picnic around that time. We had it either at Shawnee or Laurel Hill. A few times we had it at my uncle’s house in Berlin. Gram always enjoyed herself and being around her family. The picture I used up top was from Benny’s first birthday party in March of 2006, just before she got sick and had to go to the hospital. The one I’m going to use at the bottom to close out the blog was from my cousin Katie’s graduation party in the summer of 1997. It’s a nice one of her and her children.