So many memories

Today, I had the afternoon off, so Catherine and I made a trip north to my grandmother's house.  My aunt was there, and we spent a few hours going through Grandma's things.  I must say, Grandma really did a great job of not hoarding and made sure she didn't have a bunch of crap that the rest of the family has to go through.  We went through all of her cupboards and cabinets.  In her spare bedroom, I found so many things that I didn't even know Grandma had.  There were four tubs of pictures and other items, like the graduation program for both her and my grandpa.  There was even a poem in there handwritten by my great-grandmother.  Several of the gifts I had given her over the years were marked with my name, and I brought them home.

In addition, there were three envelopes with the names of my sister, my father, and me.  I left my sister's there so she could decide if she wanted them scanned.  When I got home, I decided to take a few minutes and look at my envelope.  There were so many newspaper clippings, although I probably had many of them myself as I was quite a clipping collector.  There were letters I had written to her in college and thank-you's I had written to her over many different years.  The thing I was most unprepared for was the pictures and other little things I had done or written when I was a kid.  We are talking things that are 35 or 40 years old, and my grandmother had enjoyed them enough that she kept them.

There was also a shadow box that my grandmother had made that was full of things from an office fire that my grandfather had experienced in 1961.  She had noticed that Thomas had always enjoyed looking at it when he was there, so she wanted him to have it.  As my sentimental child, I knew he would love it.  I was right, and his face absolutely lit up when I showed it to him.

It's been a really rough couple of days, and I've lost my battle against tears more than once.  At the same time, I am so incredibly grateful for the memories.  My grandmother has been a huge part of my life, and I'm so grateful for that.  She's always been an amazing woman, and it breaks my heart that we have entered this phase of her life.