My grandma's funeral was yesterday. I drove to Arizona Tuesday night so that I could take my kids, then we spent pretty much all day Wednesday in the car. It was a long drive, but it was a pretty drive.

I got stuck in a gas station parking lot in Flagstaff, AZ. They got at least a foot of snow, probably more, and I'm not used to driving in it anymore. I had to do that thing where you spin out for a second in reverse, then in first gear, then in reverse, then in first gear to try and get out. Just as Togers offered to get out and push, the tires finally grabbed. Luckily that was the only "problem" we had on the road though.

We were on some icy roads near the Arizona-Utah border, and my kids all laughed when they saw a Forest Service sign saying that fire danger was "moderate" that day. Remember, there was at least a foot of snow blanketing the forest. The sign turned out to be spot on though because we drove by a tree that was smoldering. We have no idea how it would have ignited, but we decided we wouldn't doubt Smokey the Bear ever again. We stopped and played in the snow for a few minutes, but it was so cold we didn't want to be out of the car for very long.

My dashboard display has a thermometer that tells what the outside temperature was, and when it dropped down to four degrees, we decided to have one of those contests to see who could hold their hand out the window the longest. It came down to a stand-off between me and Tortellini. It was painful. I yelled, "I AM NOT GOING TO LOSE TO YOU!!!" but in the time it took me to yell that, I couldn't handle it anymore, so two seconds later pulled my hand in and said, "Alright, you win." She wouldn't play again when the temperature dropped to zero though. The low temperature that night? Twenty-one degrees below zero. It was the first time in a long time I felt my nostrils freeze when I inhaled through my nose.

Mr M was full of questions about the funeral the night before. Where was it going to be, how long was it going to be, etc.

Mr M: Are you going to cry like a little baby tomorrow?
Me: Probably.
Mr M: Can we have a snowball fight at the graveyard?
Me: Absolutely not!
Mr M: I'm going to let people have snowball fights at my funeral.

It was nice to see a lot of my extended family again. Some of them I hadn't seen in over five years. I drove away with the realization that it could very well have been the last time I'd ever see them since my grandmother was basically the glue that held the family together. I don't know what's worse, that realization, or being okay with it if it turns out to be the case.

After the funeral, my uncle asked all the grandchildren to stop by my grandmother's house to see if there was anything they'd like to take to remember her by. I took a crystal candy dish, and a Christmas ornament. Tortellini took some porcelain dolls that my grandma had made. Togers found an old polaroid camera (something which he'd already been asking me to get him) and a fountain pen that he kept. Mr M had the most eclectic "inheritance" though. He came up to me with a piece of cardboard and a wooden hammer and asked if he could keep those. I told him he could. Then he found a jar of paperclips that he wanted because he could use them to make a cool necklace. He also made off with an old wooden cane, and a long robot arm type of thing my grandma used to grab things off of high shelves with. He's been playing with it ever since.

The silver lining in all of this is that now I have a few more memories with my kids, and they have a few more with their grandparents (whose house I'm at now). Grandma said she wanted her funeral to be a joyous occasion, and there was enough laughing and joking among the tears that I think she'd have been happy with that.

Hold on to those you hold dear

The second I saw the name on the caller ID I knew what the call was about. I answered it anyway.

"[Minnow], it's Mom. [Uncle] just called to let us know that Grandma died a few minutes ago."

Even though it's been expected for a while, it's still hard to hear those words. My mother and I talked for a few more minutes, but then I decided I needed to get off the phone so I could call my kids and let them know. My ex-wife went and rounded them up, then called me back when they were all together so I could tell them over speaker-phone. It seems like such an impersonal way to spread this kind of news, but sometimes that's how things have to be when you're hundreds of miles apart. By the time my ex-wife had them all sitting there together, and I finally told them what was going on, I honestly think my kids were relieved to find out that it was my grandma (who we all knew was going to pass away) instead of theirs.

My grandmother was a very religious woman, and didn't want anybody to be sad when she was gone. She wanted her funeral to be a celebration of sorts. She was ninety-two years old, and lived a full life. Few, if any, of us will make it that far. I just wanted to take some time to reflect on some of the memories I have of her and share them here.

I visited my grandma a few times this year. Never for more than an hour or two at a time, but it was enough. I think. During one of those visits she told me, "I have nineteen grandchildren. Each one of them thinks that they're my favorite. And you know what? They're all right!"

She had several traditions that helped make us all feel special. Every year I looked forward to getting my birthday card from her. She must have paid a lot of postage, because she'd tape coins to the inside of the card, one of each kind for every year I'd been alive. For example, when I turned ten years old, she sent a card with a ten dollar bill, ten one dollar bills, ten quarters, ten dimes, ten nickels, and ten pennies. That was quite the haul for a ten year old back then. At least it was to this ten year old.

We always looked forward to spending New Year's Eve at her house, because we were the only kids in the world who were lucky enough to have a second overnight visitor from the North Pole. It wasn't Santa Claus though. He only came on Christmas Eve. But wouldn't you know it? There were always a few left-over toys and treats that needed to be taken care of, so Santa sent one of his elves, Johnny Green, to deliver them to her grandchildren on New Year's Eve. My parents would always discourage us from discussing what Johnny Green had brought us when we went back to school. They didn't want the other kids to have to feel bad that Johnny Green never came to their Grandmas' houses.

She had a large back yard, which was perfect for Easter Egg hunts every spring. There were dozens and dozens of colored eggs set out for all the grandchildren to go out and find. Some of them were just colored eggs. But some of them came with a cash reward. It was probably just her way of keeping the tradition alive as we all got older, but there were some competitive searches for the grand prize egg, which, if I remember correctly, was worth ten dollars. Several other "cash" eggs were set out that were worth anywhere from five cents to five dollars. It was easy for a kid to go home slightly richer than they'd arrived that day.

My grandma grew up in the Bear Lake area (in southern Idaho/northern Utah). We had a few family reunions there, but one summer she took just me and one of my cousins to visit Bear Lake for a week, where she took us around to show us all the places that were important to her. We spent time swimming in Bear Lake, water skiing behind her brother-in-law's boat, exploring the depths of Minnetonka Cave, diving off of rope swings into mountain lakes, shooting pool, and perhaps most importantly eating raspberry shakes. It was only a week, but it left a lasting impression on me.

I could go on, but I won't. I already feel like I'm rambling. I just have one more. I visited her last year, and she asked me when I was going to have another paper published so that she could read it. I told her I was working on it, and she said that I needed to work faster because she wasn't getting any younger. I'm happy that I got the chance to visit her a couple of days after defending my dissertation. Not only did I get to tell her that I'd passed my defense, but also that I'd had a paper accepted for publication. She didn't get to read it (or the second one that was accepted the following week), but she didn't want to anyway. It was just her trying to make me feel like the favorite grandchild.

I'm going to miss her.