So, here are the mugs:

Our time at the apartment was even harder than expected.  My grandmother came to her apartment one last time with the family, for closure I expect.  However, I wonder if the visit did more harm than good.  She sat silently, watching her life packed into boxes, playing her stereo one last time.  She let the music say all the things she couldn’t, playing it louder when the words were particularly appropos.  She played this song the loudest of all.

Singing the Blues

When I readied to leave, she took my hand and said, “Your Pepiere is with me all the time now, in my dreams and in the day.  He’s waiting for me.”

Sorry…I know I’ve been missing a bit lately.  All is well.  We’ve been busy with day to day family stuff, but nothing to inspire a blog post.  Let’s see…just for posterity, I will make a short list.

*  Been driving Big Girl to volleyball camp daily, trying to squeeze in Baby Boy’s nap in there somewhere since camp cuts directly in the middle of nap timing.

*  A robin’s nest is wreaking havoc on my new deck…purple poop staining my new wood, and two baby birds have fallen and expired on it.  😦  Sad.  (Whose idea was it to build around the tree, anyway???)

*  New grill!  (Photos to follow later in the week…pouring rain right now.)

*  Gearing up for a trip to the Joisey Shore…shopping, list making, panicking…no clue how we’re going to pack without a U-Haul.

Really, that’s it without going into boring specifics like “cleaned front porch” and “cooked crock pot chicken.” 

This afternoon will be a bit sad though.  My grandmother had a fall a year ago August.  To make a very long drawn out story very short, she has wound up in a nursing home, and she and her children had to make a decision on her return home.  They have mutually decided that it would be best for her to permanently take up residence in the nursing home, due to ongoing health concerns.  We feel extremely fortunate that she is mentally 100% herself, and she is able to participate in the decision making.  It is her body that refuses to cooperate.  But today is emptying out the apartment day, and the resultant dispersal of contents to family members.  Although she wants us all to come in and “take what we want,” it will not be easy to dismantle her home and claim her possessions for ourselves.  She says she wants nothing.  Although she is accepting of her plight, I think she resists having things from her apartment brought there.  She will not consider the nursing home her “home.”  Therefore, although she can “move out” of her apartment, she will not take the next step and “move in.”  Perhaps her things from home would serve only as a rude reminder of where she is not. 

So anyway, I told her, “All I want are those two mugs.”  Being the type of woman who never wants gifts, she has made gift giving a huge challenge over the years, often requesting (demanding?) that we return the gifts we buy her.  However, about 13 years ago, I bought her two coffee mugs from a special store in Saratoga Springs…handmade and painted, they were each one of a kind, and they were the perfect size for her.  She loved them!  I remember being so excited that she kept them, AND used them through the years.  She has said over and over, “When I go, you make sure you take those mugs back…”  So although she hasn’t “gone” I will take those mugs, and think of her everytime I touch them.  She is my only remaining grandparent, and although I wish she could spend the rest of her days in her own home, I am awfully glad she is still with us, not “gone.” 

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven…