A Special Ordinary

I've been thinking about my grandma lately. She's my mom's mom and she is just the kind of grandma I want to be when I grow up. If I ever get to be a grandma.

My grandma, GMC (that's how she signs her name in letters and stuff), is a spunky lady. She's dealing with Alzheimer's now, but she's still got spunk. And while she's still pretty healthy, she is in her 80s, so she can't do all the things she used to, but she's still the same at heart.

I remember when I was younger, she would come over and wrestle with my brothers. Not wrestling on the ground, but she'd still wrestle with them. She was always the one to throw the first cup of water at the family reunion, but she never got wet. And she still has a bit of mischief--not too long ago, my brother was bringing her up to Idaho (maybe a year or two ago), and at a rest stop, while he was inside, she made some snowballs. When he came back, she pelted him. Totally unexpected. (I think maybe I got a little bit of that mischief streak. Sometimes, it shows itself).

When I was in high school, I worked a part time job not too far from my grandma's house and I would sometimes stop by on the way home. It may seem strange that a teenager would want to go spend time at grandma's, but I loved to be there. I could talk to her without any interruptions, and she always had time for me. I would visit when I came home from college, too. I remember once her asking me if I thought she should redo her living room. I have this memory that someone else had suggested it. I opined that it didn't matter what anyone else thought, it was her living room. She did eventually make some changes, but I still remember that conversation. Maybe because she was asking for my thoughts and treated me like they mattered.

I don't have many specific memories of those visits, other than they happened, but I remember them and they really mattered in my life. I live a long way from Grandma now, and I don't see her very often, and with 50+ grandkids and Alzheimer's, she doesn't always remember me. But I still look up to her and I hope to be like her someday.