April 7, 2005 7:20 pm

R.I.P. Grandma Emma

:note: Nine Inch Nails – “Sin (Long)”

My grandma just called me to tell me that my great-grandma Emma died yesterday. :worried: She was my Grandpa Ed’s mother, and she was 99 years old, so it’s not like it was terribly unexpected, but it was still sad. She never walked with a cane or anything – I always liked that about her, because honestly, how many 99 year olds do you know that still walk unassisted, and with good posture? She was very proud of her Norwegian descent and she always had lots of magnets and postcards and things that said “Uff Da!” on them. It cracked me up. I remember she used to knit us slippers when we were little. She had a stroke several years ago that affected her speech, so sometimes she would get frustrated because she knew what she was trying to say, but the words wouldn’t come to her. And I think she had a pacemaker put in a while back as well, but overall she was in pretty good health, especially for how old she was.

This picture is of my two great-grandmas, circa 1995. The one in the chair on the left is my Gramma O.T. (who died when she was 96 or 97), and then my Grandma Emma is on the right, on the arm of the chair. They are my grandma’s mom and my grandpa’s mom, both on my mom’s side. I liked that they were friends.

I was always much closer with Gramma O.T., basically because visiting her was much more convenient and by the time I was old enough to really want to hang out with them, Grandma Emma had her stroke, which made it difficult to understand her. Gramma O.T. and I used to play Scrabble all the time and she always beat me. She was a Scrabble MASTER. I remember feeling really uneasy the first time I beat her at Scrabble because I knew that was kind of the beginning of the end. *sigh*

The funeral for Grandma Emma is on Tuesday. My family had arranged a nice funeral for her with the help of our local funeral homes, and had headstone and flat grave markers customized for her. I have class that day and work the next morning at 7:30am. I feel bad, but I really don’t think I can go.

*****
On a little bit of a lighter note, I have received my first ‘shopped picture. Callie sent me a Photoshopped picture of Daniel and I sleeping. We were on the couch and I fell asleep on his tummy. I actually like this picture a lot better than the original – it makes both of us look better, I think. And you can’t see the fact that my boobs are systematically taking over the universe, which is very obvious in the original.

*****
All of my grandparents are currently still living, and my two great-grandmas were 96-ish and 99 when they died. I figure with my combined genetic forces, I shall be able to live forever.

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