Sweet lady

When I was in middle school, I became friends with a girl. She had a great family and I was always welcomed by them. I called her aunt, "Aunt", her grandma, "Grandma". They were all great people.

Several years later, when I was about 15, I started going to church at the same church as this family. Aunt Lorna was my Young Women's leader, and Grandma was too. One day, in the mail, I received a card- maybe for Valentine's Day, or as some Girl's Camp project. Grandma had written a letter to me about how much she loved me. She said that she thought a lot of me and felt like I was a part of her family.

Many years later, Aunt Lorna would become my mother-in-law: I would marry Grandma's oldest grandson and give birth to three of her great-grandchildren.

Grandma Bonnie passed away this July and it's taken me a while to want to blog about it, but I ran across that card again today and some pictures on my computer and my heart is feeling full.
I hope that when I pass, I will have loved as much as she did. I hope my posterity will have as many crazy, funny, heart-felt stories and feelings to share about me. I hope when I move on in years, I will be as full of life as she was. I hope I still think as rationally, giggle at dirty jokes when I think no one is looking, yet have as much class as that lady did.

She wasn't perfect by any means, but Grandma Bonnie touched the hearts of more people than anyone will ever realize.

I'm not a person who naturally dwells on the sadness of death. I know I will see these people later and there is enough to do right here and right now to keep our minds on things in the present. Instead, I like to think about the lives of the ones who pass and what can be learned from their experiences and thoughts and such.

I love quotes. I have collected hundreds of quotes that mean something to me over the years and I have a habit of applying a quote to every feeling or situation in my life, or in the lives of others. For Grandma's life, I think of a favorite quote by Mother Teresa:

"Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless."