Toledo
Went to Toledo this weekend for a memorial service. I sat with my ex-husband's girlfriend who commented that it was very different from the Russian funerals in her family: everyone is weighed down with grief. This was more restrained. Very Presbyterian. Of course, we were at a service for a 98-year-old woman: however loved, no one could think she hadn't lived the fullness of her years. We will miss her, but I think she was ready to go. It was getting hard for her to move around, she was a little too blind, a little too deaf ... at some point you just start missing those who have died before.
In the last visit I had with my grandmother, she said she missed her mother. Her stories were all about her youth -- her courtship and early married life with my grandfather. She missed them.
There and back within 24 hours. Crammed into a smallish car for five hours there, five hours back. Got into the hotel at 2 am; went to bed at 3 am. Since the adults in the front seat were working on building a website there and back again, not much to occupy myself except my own thoughts. I had some regrets that my crocheting project is now too big to travel with -- esp. in the summer since it is a blanket. Me and two kids in the backseat for the way back: they enjoyed each other, but got a little carried away at times ...
It was a little lonely in that small car. Definitely a fifth wheel. But ok, that's not the worst thing that can happen: at least there was little tension, and no fighting -- so a relatively pleasant journey.
I've been to Toledo many times to visit Grandma: but I feel like I've never really seen it. I've seen the same stretch of Reynolds Road, stayed at the Red Roof Inn, eaten at the Olive Garden (and two new restaurants this time around), and once been to the Zoo. The shopping mall where my kid once rode a merry-go-round and we bought shoes for him is now being torn up. But I've never gone much further into Toledo -- I don't really have a sense of it as a whole, just this little piece of it.
Here's the thing about family: you may divorce the man, but you don't really divorce the family. They stay family. Especially if there is a kid involved: I remain related to them through him. Aunt Ann introduced me as my son's mother: which solved the problem of how to introduce both my ex's girlfriend and me in the same breath (we were standing by each other -- we sat with each other at the service as well: second row, as opposed to the first row of family). Good to see family and catch up a bit. Odd because I've been so lax in keeping up (must do Christmas cards, must not blow them off).
Here was Grandma: active and kind, interested in others, quietly helpful, strong and courageous, intelligent and resourceful.
Yes, we will miss her. I'm glad my kid got to know at least one of his great-grandmothers.
In the last visit I had with my grandmother, she said she missed her mother. Her stories were all about her youth -- her courtship and early married life with my grandfather. She missed them.
There and back within 24 hours. Crammed into a smallish car for five hours there, five hours back. Got into the hotel at 2 am; went to bed at 3 am. Since the adults in the front seat were working on building a website there and back again, not much to occupy myself except my own thoughts. I had some regrets that my crocheting project is now too big to travel with -- esp. in the summer since it is a blanket. Me and two kids in the backseat for the way back: they enjoyed each other, but got a little carried away at times ...
It was a little lonely in that small car. Definitely a fifth wheel. But ok, that's not the worst thing that can happen: at least there was little tension, and no fighting -- so a relatively pleasant journey.
I've been to Toledo many times to visit Grandma: but I feel like I've never really seen it. I've seen the same stretch of Reynolds Road, stayed at the Red Roof Inn, eaten at the Olive Garden (and two new restaurants this time around), and once been to the Zoo. The shopping mall where my kid once rode a merry-go-round and we bought shoes for him is now being torn up. But I've never gone much further into Toledo -- I don't really have a sense of it as a whole, just this little piece of it.
Here's the thing about family: you may divorce the man, but you don't really divorce the family. They stay family. Especially if there is a kid involved: I remain related to them through him. Aunt Ann introduced me as my son's mother: which solved the problem of how to introduce both my ex's girlfriend and me in the same breath (we were standing by each other -- we sat with each other at the service as well: second row, as opposed to the first row of family). Good to see family and catch up a bit. Odd because I've been so lax in keeping up (must do Christmas cards, must not blow them off).
Here was Grandma: active and kind, interested in others, quietly helpful, strong and courageous, intelligent and resourceful.
Yes, we will miss her. I'm glad my kid got to know at least one of his great-grandmothers.