I am so glad I have this picture.  She looks beautiful and happy, doesn’t she?  The one in the middle.  My grandmother, sporting the sass we taught her in later years.  I’m not sure if she would want me to tell you this but I actually saw her drink Coke OUT OF THE BOTTLE once!

We say goodbye to her this week.

And I can’t stop looking at this picture.  Taken at my sister’s baby shower last February.  This is why I do what I do; documenting life, love.  Because one day, pictures will become precious memories.

There were picnic lunches, always with egg salad, potato chips and coke with a straw.

There were letters written while I was away at camp and at college, always with a dollar and a stick of gum inside.

She helped me rescue Josh McDowell’s pen from in between slats of the deck at Camp-Of-The-Woods, and I got to shake his hand.

She and Pop-Pop loved my early (wind and click) photography.

She taught me to sew and helped me secretly make a “quilt” for my mom.  Don’t ask to see it now but I was proud of it then!

I remember the smell of her house, the gas on her kitchen stove, the lists she kept each year of how much food was consumed the previous Thanksgiving or Christmas.  Always keeping track, always being resourceful and still, always serving.  I loved her pumpkin pie.

I remember her and celebrate her life this week.  I know she is home, as she said recently, “with my Jesus and my Howard.”

“In mansions of glory and endless delight,

I’ll ever adore Thee in Heaven so bright;

I’ll sing with the glittering crown on my brow,

If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, tis now.”