File:Christmas at Grammy's (2599761668).jpg

I believe this was taken by my Bio-Father December 1982. Left to Right: Aunt Michele, me (with the bow on my head, which still occurs to this day), Grammy, Mother.

To start off, I'm sorry for something that may seem depressing on a normally joyful day. You may want to pass on reading the description from here down.

October 4, 2004 began like any other. I was watching some TV on the couch while Jay was on his computer, and Billy was playing with his toys. Nothing out of the ordinary, until the phone rang at around 10am that morning. It was my Mother.

"Grammy passed away a few minutes ago, just to let you know."

I hung up the phone a little numb, but not too shocked. She had been battling cancer for the past few months, and we all knew the end was coming soon. To tell the truth, I didn't shed a tear about it until nearly four years later when I came across a picture of her grave on a website. Now sitting here writing this, I can't believe she's been gone for a little over 5 years.

I still miss my Grammy to this day, and I still have lots of fond memories of her. She was a little harsh on me when I dropped out of college (I was supposed to be the first doctor), and probably when I became pregnant with Billy, but I really loved, and looked up to her. Jay and I even got married on her and my Grandpa's wedding anniversary just to show her how much I looked up to her and Grandpa for staying together for nearly 50 years. It would have been 50, but she passed away one month before their anniversary. Even though when I told her what and why we were doing it on her anniversary, "Why? A marriage is not about luck, it's about work." or something along those lines. Jay and I do some of the things that both her and my Grandpa used to do, like referring to each other as "Mommy/Mom" and "Daddy/Dad," just to name one similarity.

My mother went out for Grammy's funeral back in '04, and I was a little sad that I couldn't attend, but then again, I was a little disconnected because of the distance, and because of how harsh she was before she got sick. Don't get the idea that she was a mean, or bad woman. I think she was just disappointed with the choices I had made. She was the one who taught me how to play Canasta, along with many other board games. I have a lot of memories from when I was a little kid with her like: us playing games together on her old Tandy computer, having rocky road ice cream together when I stayed the night, picking strawberries out in her little garden in the back yard, her Atari 2600 in the middle bedroom with Frogger, Pac-Man, and ET (yes, the shitty one!), how she kept an endless supply Ocean Spray cranberry juice in her refrigerator (I'm addicted to the stuff to this day!), playing with her, I mean Grandpa's, cat Pepper, acting like an idiot and saying Forrest Gump lines on her camcorder during the family reunion, many Christmases & Thanksgivings... I can go on and on. I still remember their house like the back of my hand. One day recently, I smelled a similar scent that used to be in their house when I was a kid at the bus stop coming home from shopping... it made me yearn for the younger, happier days.

Anyway, I left her a beanie baby kitty (one from my collection) to keep her company, and attempted a small bottle of Ocean Spray cranberry juice. The Ocean Spray didn't make it, but "Pepper" did. That's when I found out that she was Grandpa's cat.