Last January my grandmother died. Sucks. No way around it. Since that time we have been trying to sort through and give away, keep, get rid of her belongings so that my parents can sell her house. Gramma was my Mom's mom. I have been going over to Gramma's with my Mom to help her with this task. Fortunately, she was not a packrat like the rest of our family, but there has still been a lot to go through. Part of the problem is that it is hard for my Mom to spend much time doing this. It wears on her. She questions if she did enough to help my Gramma when she got sick. And she misses her mom and dad. Add to all of this that my mom is not a morning person, and the only free time I have is before 2:30pm. (also added, I am in no way a morning person, but my children have forced me into a temporary state of morning person-ness because they rise at 6:30am every stinking day, I dream of the day they want to sleep late) Today John, Mom and I were diligently sorting pots, pans, corningware, and a ridiculous number of souvenirs. I was trying to make sense of the mass of stuff we had separated and I saw some videos on the shelf. I looked at them and they were movies my Grandad had recorded off of TV. There was his sweet handwriting that I haven't seen in years, and in that moment he whooshed back into my mind, his smile, his laugh, his hug and I had to sit down. Usually mom is the one who has to take a break because it's all too much, but today it was me. My grandfather's memory almost knocked me over. I pulled myself together, and helped go through a few more things. Mom worries sometimes about what they would think if they could see us going through everything. Giving some things to charity, keeping some things, selling some things, and flat out throwing some things away. I think that they would be ok with it, because I think, I hope, I pray that if I am ever given the chance to look at what's going on after I am gone...I hope that I am looking at the people I love, instead of my commemorative Tweetsie Railroad plate.

Words

Thinking about the word "grounded". Pondering. Marinating.