Bluebirds Fly.

I’m not going to lie to you- my grandmother and I did not have what you would call a smooth or particularly close relationship. There was a time I’d even classify it as a non-relationship. But luckily we were able to patch things up and mend fences in the past few years. We agreed to disagree about the existence of “house rules” and ultimately quit playing Uno or Monopoly together, which helped.

But even so, I do have plenty of good memories of her. Most center around parties and holidays, all are filled with our loud, large,family. Weddings, Fourth of Julys, family reunions and 60th birthdays, and Thanksgiving and Christmas, baptisms and graduations. It’s different now, without our “matriarch”.

Today is GG’s birthday, and it’s been months since she passed away. Since we moved to Canada, we mostly only ever saw GG for quick stops during our yearly road trips up the coast. It still seems a bit odd to think that if I were to drive down to the Poconos now that she wouldn’t be there sitting in her chair, telling us there’s YooHoo in the sunroom fridge and bretzels in the cabinet.

I don’t have a ton of pictures of her, (and even less now that half my stuff is still in boxes) but I was able to to scrounge up one of her with each of my babies, plus the one of the two of us.

I do wish she would’ve been able to come up and visit us at our new house here in Quebec. It overlooks the lake. She would’ve loved that.

Back in January, when I was down in the States for the funeral, I got the idea that I wanted one of those rainbow prism hangy things like she used to have. I did not manage to find any, though I kept the search kind of on the back burner, any time I saw a store that might be the right type for something like that. Then finally in September I was walking along the road near our apartment and this little basement level shop caught my eye. Row and rows of prisms, all different shapes and sizes. I settled on this one, to put in my car, and I love it. I may end up going to pick up another for my sunroom.

I also somehow managed to acquire that Wizard of Oz themed throw that used to hang on the wall at GG’s house. Not sure she’d be so thrilled that it’s now in active circulation as an actual blanket, but Bianca loves to snuggle up in the “Wiz Boz banket” and watch “Wiz Boz”, and I’m pretty sure she would’ve loved that.