This year my wonderful, darling grandmother turned 95!
She has been an amazing influence on my life, from the time I was small and she would watch me during the day while my mom worked, to now that I am grown. I find myself thinking often of her and the memories she created for me.
I learned all the old lullabies rocking with her in her blue easy chair, read beloved stories whose tattered pages and worn bindings I pull lovingly from my own children's bookshelf at night to read to them. I would sit at her side as she practiced the hymns on piano and go with her some Sundays to the "old folks' home" where she played for their sacrament services for many years. She made me banana shakes in the summer, peanut butter and honey sandwiches for lunch on her own homemade bread and have picnics under the cherry tree in her yard. I would play for hours in her raspberry patch while she weeded and worked in the yard. As a small girl I would accompany her to the Capitol building in Salt Lake where she worked in the mail room and later answered phones. We would take trips to Millville, where she grew up, and she would tell stories of the pandemic flu, her family, and memories of all her brothers and sisters in the house by the cemetary.
I spent summers in Utah with her when my family lived out of state. I had birthdays at her house during the winter. My eighth birthday was at her house and she came when I was baptized in the font in the Salt Lake Tabernacle. I went to Sweden with her when I was eighteen and she ran circles around me! She was my escort the day I went to the temple, and escorted me, along with my mother when I married the man of my dreams. She has held and sang lullabies to each of my children.
I am continually amazed at the people who know her and love her. She has hosted five exchange students from Sweden, Denmark and Poland who keep in contact with her. She has friends the world over--Australia, Japan, England.
Though now the years are starting to show, her gait is slow, her stanima short, her hearing a little difficult, I am amazed by her. She has written a book and now anxiously awaits to see it published. She continues to go to the temple. She lives her life to the fullest.
Joseph Smith once called his wife Emma an "Elect Lady." That phrase describes my grandmother to the fullest. I know that time continues to move forward, and I know in my heart of hearts that the twilight has begun to fall. I do not know for how long I will have her. I feel that even when she is gone I will still expect to see her whenever I go to her house or get together with extended family. I know her love and presence will always be felt in our lives.
My children call her "grandma great". I hope that they realize just how great of a lady she is and hold those memories of precious moments with her dear.
