Families are Forever

A year ago my great grandparents both passed away. How lucky am I, to have had great grandparents well into my twenties? How lucky are my children, to have met their great great grandparents? Pretty lucky. Especially when I consider my husband, who never really knew any of his grandparents. Every time I think about them, these are the thoughts that come to me. They were both wonderful people: Grandma with her books of poetry and her crazy stories, Grandpa with his gruff demeanor and his soft, kind eyes. He was a veteran, a former marine. If you said 'Hey, Grandpa, I love you' you were likely to get a 'Yep' in response... But look at this photograph and tell me that you don't see love there:

And this is the only photograph of Grandma that I have in my possession:


I like to think of her in happier times, before she had grown this weak and frail, when she was still spunky and bright... but this is still a lovely photograph. Ryker, not even a whole day old, and his Great Great Grandmother, just a month away from 85.

Anyway. As I said, they both passed away last spring, only a few weeks apart. And just this weekend their headstone was finally put in place. The family gathered together to see it. We had a picnic at the park, and then drove over to the cemetery.
It was lovely. A dark, beautiful granite. "I chose this one because it's the strongest granite that they had," says my grandfather. You can tell that he's proud of it, glad that there's something beautiful to mark the spot where his parents rest. Though, if I know G.Grandma, she's not really resting. Maybe she's dancing. Or crocheting up a storm. I wonder if you can crochet on the other side?