30 days

Yesterday was one month.
It was a long day.
I visited my aunt on Thursday to pick up a few things that I had loaned grandma while she was in the nursing home. There was a quilt, a light one for summer. I had given it to her so she had something homey to hold while she lived out her last days. It now has her name written in the corner, so the laundry lady returns it to the right room. What I wasn't expecting were the fish.

When I was a kid, my grandparents lived in a modest trailer on a property that has a pond and a swamp. plenty of room to run and play, swim, fish and just spend time together. On the bathroom wall were some ceramic fish, and grandma had a song that she would sing to us about them. I just recently realized how much like her I am, with my painting things and my love for the outdoors and artful experience. I am now the proud owner of the bathroom fish, and shortly my bathroom will be painted blue like a pond. (who is going to tell my poor husband we are changing that bathroom again?) 

I think I will always treasure the times throughout my life when my grandma spoke to me, taught me something and just loved me and my children and husband. She was always a shining example of how I wanted to be as a mother, grandmother, mother-in-law and friend.  I was reading a calendar she had written in the year after grandpa died. It was so sad, yet so refreshing to read her words and know how much she cared about all of us.  And to read how fiercely she loved my grandpa is the most amazing thing of all. She was a widow for 33 years.  I can't handle my hubby being on second shift.  Yet she kept her promise to him and now is finally right where she always wanted to be, and where she belongs- with Grandpa and Jesus.

Its been a fast 30 days.  I wonder how many in my family realize its been  a month already. I feel like its been an eternity some days. Then I smile, because I know that one day it will be an eternity with Grandma. And that makes me smile as I prepare to hang the fish and paint the bathroom.