Tribute

I love the weather today. There is something to be said for thunder rolling across the mountains. I am sitting here on my bed watching the rain poor down to water my newly planted flowers.

The trees are blowing in the wind and the whole world is quiet. It reminds me of the poem my Gram wrote.

Most people love the sun

but I love most of all a cool grey sky
with clouds that trail along the sides of hills
like skirts of quaker brides.

Such days, when fields grown strangly still,
keep their secrets, good or ill,
and all unloveliness is vain
behind a blowing veil of rain.

My Gram grew up in the northwest for most of her life. Her life could have been a movies, it was so full. She worked on a ranch where she met her husband, had 5 kids, lost her hunsband to a an accident when she was 35, raised her kids alone by having borders, getting up at 4:00am in the morning with her oldest son to pick onions for money and back home to make a big breakfast for her borders.

She was beautiful and hard working and always gave, gave, gave. I have never know a more selfless woman. She raised her 3 nephews and us kids half my life. She took a walk every day. Could bake an apple pie to die for and mad EVERYTHING from scratch of course. I used to love to go on walks with her. She would take a walk every day.

She told the best bedtime stories and there was never a night that went by that she didn't tell us a "John and Mary" story or her famous "mouse" stories. I slept with her ever night and she was the one who taught me to pray,. I said the "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord, my sould to take. God bless daddy and mommy".... an on and on.

This is a woman who shaped my childhood almost more than anyone else. Her birthday is October 17 and I have thought alot about her. She would be 102 this year I think. I feel her nearby lately and I just want you and her to know that I treasure her memory and that she lives on in my children.

I pray that God can make me the kind of loving and patient woman that she was. I wrote a song for her on my guitar a few years ago. These are the words:

Firelight dances on the walls and the windows
reflections and shadows play on your face.
An antique piano is guarding the moment,
with an old family picture in delicate lace.

Chorus:
Stories of romance, horses and laughter,
walks in the evening, holding your hand.
Learning and loving, laughing together
are the things that remind me of you in the end.

A low melow voice that would rock me so slowly
a face lined with stories that you loved to tell
a spirit so sweet and soft as a flower
she made me a dreamer, she knew me so well.

Refrain:
And I will always remember
and I'll tell your stories again and again.
And you will live on forever
in the hearts of your daughters
your spirit will dwell.

Chorus:


Here's to you grandma! I love you!