Remembering Cecelia

On Sunday, I discovered my 'adopted' Grandma had passed away 2 weeks ago. I've known her for over a year; she was my honorary aunt's roommate, and the two ladies were proud of my writing progress, and enjoyed reading my first two books.

They also loved the banana bread, pumpkin bread, and any other treats I brought in, to break up the monotony of nursing home cusine.

Both pics were taken before Christmas; her son is to the right (yeah, I've got to stop cutting people in half!), and in this picture, she didn't hear me say 'Smile!' She was happy to see that it was me holding the camera, and gave me a big hug and kiss before posing for the next one.

After my aunt died, I teased her about her 'gentleman friend', who would sit in the hallway with her, holding her hand and another lady's. Kenny used to complain she never shared any of the goodies I'd brought, and shortly before New Years', I took him his own little sack of cookies. But Cecelia still gloated over the fact she had the larger bag, ha ha!

Due to widespread illness in the nursing home the first two weeks of January, we were advised to stay home. Two weeks ago, we made it out to see the MIL, and I popped down to Cecelia's room to see how she was. She wasn't in the hallway; she wasn't in her room, and her bed was neatly made up as always. No nursing staff was in sight, so I concluded she was either in the shower or her son had come to take her outside for a while.

Last week, the stomach flu was raging through our family, so we stayed home.

Sunday, Kenny was alone in the hall; I shook his hand, gave him and received a kiss, and asked where his 'girls' were.

"Well, you know one of them's gone."

"Gone? You mean...Which one?"

He nodded. "Cece. The Good Lord called her home two weeks ago. One minute she was fine, and the next...she was gone."

I squeezed his hand again and joked, "Well, I guess you won't have to fight for any treats now!"

He smiled broadly and asked, "So when's the next delivery? You've short-changed me the last two times!"

Cecelia's 79th birthday would have been next week. Think I'll make up a special batch for Kenny.

Wonderful Weather!

It may hit 70 degrees today! I've already arranged for some bookmarks to be made for my signing on Friday, and later today we'll be going down to storage to inspect the contents of my rollie cart.

It's also laundry day, and I've laid out some pork chops. We're cooking out on the grill tonight.

Now if the kids would just find my gloves...I thought they might have been under the snow. But no, they are still frolicking around somewhere. Looks like I'll have to go buy new ones next year, or if winter returns!

That will teach me to loan them out to teens whose own gloves are soaked from building snow forts!