What's the best kind of love in your opinion?
Mine is when you receive love from someone that doesn't have to.
With a broken family tree, Grandma Miller had no obligations to loving me.
23 years ago I could have lost her in my life, but I didn't. It wasn't until the wee minutes of July 2nd, 2015 that I truly lost her.
Though she did have that unconditional love that only a grandma can have.
The one that'll give you candy and then send you home so they won't be mad that you are hyper.
The one that you can kick them all evening sharing a bed and then send you home so the next night they got a good nights sleep, but they still miss the kicking.
The kind that even though you're late to everything, they won't say anything, she just starts lying about when somethings starts, so you don't know any different.
Even more, the kind that when you bring her a little silver spoon from Peru, because that's what she collects, she smiles and says "Thank you".
Then you bring another, from Grand Caymen, she loves it.
Another from Honduras, and another from Belize.
Then another after another until there are at least 15.
Smiling each time and loving each one.
It wasn't until about 3-4 months ago as I was looking around grandma's house I realized that every spoon I'd given her was in a little tea cup.
That was great, a trip down memory lane of where I had been.
I expected to see other tea cups with different 'sets' of spoons.
Ones from others or that served as reminders of certain memories, places, trips or people.
Then I looked around some more, those were the only spoons she had.
It was then I realized, Grandma never collected spoons... But since she was a grandma, she was never going to tell me any different.
She loved the spoons just as much thimbles she actually collected.
One evening while sitting with her I asked her about them.
She just chuckled and told me she loved them.
Proof she was a loving grandmother, even though no proof was needed. Everyone knew she was the living definition of grandmother.
Watching Grandma over the last few months was quite hard on me.
What I wrote above was going to be part of what I had planned on saying at her funeral, but just couldn't get myself to do it.
She had breast cancer and I watched it take it's nasty toll until the very last breath.
This brought a lot of things into perspective for myself and gave me a glimpse of what my future could entail.
This was hard but I wouldn't have traded my time with her and holding her hand through all of it for the world.
I don't believe everything happens for a reason, however, I'm a little happy I was able to go through some of the same things as she did. This allowed me to try to comfort her as well as listen and understand things that others just didn't quite comprehend.
It's easy to listen to what someone is feeling, it's a little different to have felt it yourself before.
Grandma taught me more about life in just a few months than I probably have learned the last year myself.
Wow, did she have a sense of humor in 2015!
So many great laughs and stories shared.
As my uncle said "Never tell a dying woman a secret.". *Boy* was this true!
Another special woman in my life was Lola. From a young age she had a dear place in my heart. After my diagnosis she was there often to make sure I didn't loose weight in the form of the BEST gluten free chocolate cake I've ever had. Her daughter carried on that even at the services and had a cake there for me too. This was a gesture I'm not soon to forget. She made sure to do some research and pass on any info that could be useful to me. She bought me a handful of things to help me get through and just to make me smile. She even bought me the same book twice. I will miss the daily emails and the laughs when I'd go to her house and we'd talk. I'm a little sad she didn't get to read the parts of the book I have started. She asked about it many times and was looking forward to giving me some feedback. She was my biggest 'cheerleader' in getting it published. I won't let you down.
Lastly, a simple reminder that life can end in seconds, literally. Janice Weston was my Grandma Carol's best friend. She was in a freak car accident just a few weeks ago.
She moved away 14ish years ago after Carol passed. I didn't get to see her as much as I did growing up, but I heard from her about once a week to just make sure I was ok.
She took me on as one of her own grandchildren and was a very loving soul.
To her I say; Thank you for the reminder that age has no place in making dreams happen.
Tell Grandma Carol hi for me please.
On a personal note, I have had my last treatment. I will have my port out on November 4th.
I meet with the oncologist at the end of the month to hopefully get my 'pass' to move past all of this.
I'll keep everyone updated.
RIP Katherine Miller.
RIP Lola Quinan
RIP Jan Weston
