Living History

History is made up of people. People are full of stories. Some beautiful, some hard, some priceless. Each one is special and unique.

My Grandma recently moved in with us, from all the way up in Michigan.

It’s so much fun for us whenever she’ll tell a story from her childhood. She has stage 5 alzheimer’s disease and so we often get to hear the same story over with a little detail changed a bit. 😉

Looking through old pictures with her is so fun as she’ll remember things, stories, or people and tell us about them.

One of her favorite times to tell a story is after one of us kids (usually me) does some sort of silly trick on someone else.

Then she’ll say, “You’ll never guess what I did!”

We’ll smile at each other and ask her, “What did you do?”

“There was a boy in my class,” she’ll say, with a twinkle in her eye. “And I dumped my ice cream cone right….on his head!” We’ll all laugh and she’ll add, “Then I took off running like nothin! He never did catch up to me!”

So we finally figured out where I got that wild streak from; it’s in my genes. ;P

Grandma always adds after that story, “Yep. He was one of my favorites.”

She was so much fun and pictures from her life show the constant smile that her face now falls into so naturally. She often tells us of her SEVEN sons and one daughter. (My dad’s the youngest). I once asked her if she spoiled him at all and she whispered, “Maybe a LITTLE bit. But don’t tell him!”

I just love imagining her life!
My favorite thing she talks about is Grandpa. He was the radio man in a B17 bomber plane during WW2 and survived being shot down over North Africa. Grandma was only around 10 years old then. She once told us, as she looked at a picture of their wedding, “He was handsome….and I married him!”

I’ve loved having her here and it’s such an amazing reminder that the lives we live will leave a legacy. Our stories are still being written. I want to make mine one that I want to be read. One worth re-telling.

Happy living! 😉

-Mags