I have been blessed with having many influential people in my life. Some good some not so good but all play a part in making me the person I am today. One of the most important people I have been blessed to have in my life was my Grandma Bonnie. She was like a second mother to my sister and me. She was strong, honest, and loving everything you could ever want in a grandmother. Since my parents were divorced when it was my Dads weekend it pretty much meant that we were going to be at Grandma and Grandpas. Honestly my sister and I didn't want it any other way. Grandma spoiled us. Not by buying us lots of things but in other ways. We had our own room there which occasionally we had to share with our other two cousins but that was okay we knew it was ours. We would spend hours playing dress up or barbie or house whatever our minds could dream up. We would sing, dance, put on plays the things you do as a child that can't be bought. She did her best to teach us to be ladies, to treat people with kindness and try to do what is right. She was a very traditional Grandma but at the same time understood that we were young and would inevitably make mistakes. Some of the best times were sitting around the table listening to Grandma tell stories of when she was a little girl. She would sip on her coffee and we would get so caught up you actually felt like you were living her memory. If there was blogging back then she would have been the blogger of all bloggers. She actually wrote a memoir and had a few of her stories published in magazines here and there. I admire her writing very much.
The sad truth is when Grandma passed away in 2001 I was 19 and it wasn't until then that I truly understood her influence. For awhile I felt anger because I wasn't there when she died, I felt my family had lied to me about how she was doing. We were on vacation which Grandma told us not to miss but anyway.... After the anger passed I realized that when I was younger, I cant say for sure how old Grandma was diagnosed with colon cancer. She fought like hell and beat the cancer, she beat the cancer because she knew she needed to be there for me and my Sister. My Uncle Doug told me not long after Grandma died that at one point she said to him,"I will beat this cancer because I have to help raise Bridget and Shelly." I think that she knew that there would be times that even with our parents best intentions that we would need someone to be a shoulder to cry on or a safe place to go. You see I was mad that my Grandma had been taken from me before I was ready but the thing is that I had been blessed to have her in my life for years longer than what could have been. I think of her almost every day and wonder if she would be proud of me and sometimes wish so badly I could ask her for advice. I miss her and will always hold her closely in my heart.
