I scanned it at an absolutely huge resolution, and I’m going to have it printed out, and frame it along with another picture I scanned:
Gram, my mother, and my uncle.
I think I’m going to have that one printed out, too. In fact, I think that next time I go to Maine, I’m going to take an evening and scan all the old pictures so that I can have copies of them made and put into an album.
I learned things about my grandmother I didn’t know – for instance, she wanted to be a teacher, and even had two years of college. I had NO idea she’d gone to college. Her brother was supporting her so that she could attend college, but he got married and could no longer support her, so she had to drop out and get a job.
My grandmother specifically told my mother, many times, that she didn’t want a funeral because “I don’t want people standing around staring at my dead body”. When my mother made the phone calls on Saturday morning to tell people that my grandmother had passed, and that there would be no funeral or service, some of my grandmother’s old friends were VERY disapproving. One of them even called my mother a few days later to say “It’s just not right that there’s no service. There’s no closure!”
My mother hung up the phone and said “If she wanted closure so bad, maybe she should have shown up at the nursing home to see her!”
Oddly, not ten minutes before the phone rang, my mother had been discussing the possibility of having a small family service graveside at some point in the future.
My grandmother was cremated, and part of her ashes are going to be buried in the family plot at a cemetery in Brunswick. The rest of her ashes were returned to my mother Friday afternoon for scattering. My mother, Debbie, and I went to several places that meant a lot to my grandmother and scattered some of the ashes. We used a shot glass (heh) to scoop the ashes out of the bag – I should say
I used a shot glass to scoop out the ashes. At one point I had ashes all over my hands and in a few spots on the front of my black pants, and I thought “Some people would be freaked out at the thought of having the ashes of their beloved grandmother all over them, I bet.” Not me, though. Maybe I just don’t freak easily.
We didn’t scatter all of the ashes. Some of them we put in a small container for the spud, who decided she wanted some of the ashes. Why? I have no clue what the child wants to do with them. All I know is that my grandmother’s ashes are NOT going to end up buried in the back yard next to Tubby – that I can guarantee you. The rest of the ashes, my mother kept. She wants to scatter them in the yard of the home where my grandmother grew up, once she finds out for sure which house it is.
I should point out that when we scattered ashes on Friday afternoon, we didn’t take the silly step of asking people whether they minded having ashes scattered on their lawn. No, what actually happened is that my mother pulled into the driveway of the home where my grandparents spent 30ish years, I hopped out of the car, walked onto the lawn, and flung the ashes from the shotglass so that they scattered everywhere, got back into the car, and we took off for the next location. It was an undercover mission – Operation Scatter Gram.
Luckily no one reported us for scattering an unknown whitish substance all over their lawn…
* * *
Flying on September 11th was a little creepy, I’ll admit. But there’s a bit of an upside – no one wants to fly on September 11th. Which means that on all three of my flights, the planes were less than half full. Which means that instead of being crammed in next to a stranger for the 2 hour and 43 minute flight from Newark to Memphis, I had a row of seats to myself.
I suspect that as time goes by more people will be willing to fly on that date, though.
I finished (and abandoned) two books in the eight hours between the time I left Portland and arrived in Huntsville.
As always, Miz Poo was thrilled right out of her little mind to see me, and it was very nice to get home.
* * *
When I got home I checked my gmail account – I actually have two gmail accounts, isn’t that sickening? One for regular email, one for nothing but notify email – to find that I have 350+ emails from blogs and journals that updated while I was gone.
I’m not complaining, believe me. It’s probably going to take me the better part of the week to get caught up. The cool thing about not having easy computer access (or, I guess I should say, easy computer access ON A DIAL-UP CONNECTION) is that once I get home, I have a ton of journal and blog posts to get caught up on, and a ton of TV viewing to get caught up on as well. Not to mention that since I’m hardly ever on the computer while I’m in Maine, I get a lot of reading done.
Of course, I would have preferred a happier reason to go to Maine, that’s for sure.
* * *
The stitches come out this afternoon!
* * *
Previously
2003: No entry.
2002: I think he has a camera hidden somewhere in the bathroom, and when I’m in the shower, an alarm goes off and tells him to call me immediately.
2001: Time to go cold turkey, Deb…
2000: WHEN WILL THE SUFFERING END???]]>