The Day After Easter

Today is Monday. It’s the day after Easter and it’s cold outside. The boys keep telling me it’s nice outside but I think the sunshine, which I am happy about, is decieving.

Yesterday morning in chldrens church we had a great service. It was good to see some kids we hadn’t seen in awhile and the message in the service was great. We did a skit that was written about three boxers. Death, man and Jesus. It was written like they were boxers and how death tried to take down man and then Jesus and how Jesus came back and gave victory to man over death. It was so good. A great reminder and powerful when you see it in a skit.
That afternoon Layne, Sara and the girls my Mom and sister and Larry’s parents came out. We had an Easter egg hunt for Mackenzie. She had fun. We had her spend the night before overnight with us. She fell asleep around 7:00 but when we were changing her clothes for bed we made the mistake of trying to take her hoodie sweatshirt off and that woke her up.
But she and I lay on our bed for a while just cuddling. When ever I get a chance to do that I am reminded of how I miss her. I miss her needing me to hold her so she can fall asleep and take a nap. She loves her Papa but when it comes to going to sleep she needs me.
While we were lying down I started thinking about my own grandparents and how close I was to my grandma McConkey. We lived two houses away from them until I was about 8 or 9. She took care of us before we started school while my Mom worked and after school until my Mom got home later on. She was so much fun. She painted [pictures with acrylics. She loved to write and she was a rock collector. She also went to visit a lot of people in nursing homes and sold realestate. She took us with her to do all of it. We collected rocks with her and pretended to be on a diamond hunt because we were looking for geodes. We painted with her on our own canvas and on the really flat rocks we found. We had our own pad of paper to write on while she was writing her letters. And we went to every nursing home within 50 miles from our house. Maybe that is why I don’t like nursing homes now. One thing my grandma was not good at was cooking. She couldn’t really cook anything to well but every once in awhile she would turn out a good cocunut cream pie and to celebrate she would eat her dessert that night first. She said she was old and could do whatever she wanted now. But when she said it she wasn’t being sassy. On her it was cute.
When we were sick and had to miss school she would fix Lipton chicken noodle soup and bread with real butter. Bread so fresh that when you took a bite the bread stuck to the roof of your mouth. If you didn’t have the flu you got peanut butter on your bread and an ice cream float made with orange crush and vanilla ice cream. Bordens ice cream to be exact.

The reason that I am telling you all of this is that while I was laying with Kenzie I started to wonder what she would be when she was an adult? Who will she marry? Will she marry? What is the call that God has on her life? What will she look like when she is a teenager? Will we always be close and what will her memories be of me?

My grandma McConkey died when I was 13 or 14. I can’t remember exactly. I am not just good at remembering time. After she died I thought of her often, actually all the time. Whenever something major happened in my life I wished she were there. I wondered what she would think of what I had done. What would she say to me?

I would really like all of my grandchildren to have those kinds of memories of me. Remember the things that I have done with them. Imparted some understanding of the things that I loved and enjoyed. Had special treats that I made just for them.
But most important I want them to know that I am there biggesst fan, that I think they are terrific and there is no one else like them. That I will love them forever.

That is what I felt and knew about Grandma McConkey and that is a tradition that I want to pass on to all my grandchildren.

I am feeling a little melancholy today, Can you tell?

Later,
B