Show & Tell: Happy Birthday Grandma!

Welcome to my contribution to Mel's Show and Tell. If you have no idea what this is, please check it out here. You might want to take a peek at what the rest of the class is doing, or even better you could JOIN class!

Today, Easter Sunday, Grandma would have been 96. In honor of her birthday I'd like to dedicate this Show and Tell to my grandmother.

Grandma had a fond appreciation of Show & Tell. She was an elementary school teacher for years. She was a wonderful teacher. She loved to travel, and many of her own Show & Tells involved photos and items purchased from far away places. This habit didn't stop when she retired from teaching. Nope. She was always the perfect show-er and tell-er. She was very good to keep things together in a theme. Take this for example,

A jewelry box, a pin and necklace on top of a typical textile which were purchases from a trip to Guatemala. This is her photograph from 1974. Guess how I found it? As a 35mm slide mount in a collection of perfectly sorted and labeled slides to coincide with a series of photos to be shared via projector and screen. See what I mean? She was a Show & Tell natural.

If only I could have inherited some of my grandmother's other wonderful talents besides story telling. Back in her day they would have simply have referred to her as a "home-maker". Of course she was much more than that, but oh, what a home she would make! She gardened, canned, jellied, kept up with recipies, wrote letters often, baked, embroidered, acted as a scout troop leader, made every dollar strech, sewed, scrapbooked, and crafted. She even had the ability to make camping homey. Well, here take a look for yourself... (Photos from 1956)

If a magazine existed called, "Better Camp Homes, and Picnics" don't you think this top photo could be a cover shot?

Visiting Grandma's house a child was always a highlight. We were greeted with delicious home made cookies and a house filled with treasures. She had many games, puzzles and craft projects. There was enough to keep us kids occupied and never seen for hours.

Knowing this...I have a theory on why we haven't seen a BFP yet. My future children are at grandmother's house. In heaven, Grandma probably has a perfect house (with a basement of course!) and she is teaching our children all sorts of wonderful things. She has probably read to them countless books to give them the same love of reading she shared with me. By the time I was old enough to visit Grandma's house her artritis kept her from doing some of the things that she loved so much like gardening. Now that artritis no longer hold her back, I'm sure that our children are growing the biggest tomatoes, the tastiest peaches, and perhaps some amazing things that I won't see until I get to visit Grandma again. Just like my brother and I who would enjoy spending time with her and never want to leave...perhaps our children are just having so much fun they don't want to leave.

So, with that consideration I'd like to send my grandmother the following message:

Dear Grandma,

Happy Birthday! I've missed you, but I'm happy to know that you are in a place where you are free to do all of the things that you were unable to do here for so long. Although you are not going to be here when we have kids, I'm delighted to know that you have probably already met them. Thank you for taking such great care of them and teaching them things that they could never learn from me. But you should know, I absolutely can't wait to meet them Grandma! Please send one of them along to be with us soon. I could never be as good as a home-maker as you, but I think I've learned enough to be as good as a mother as you. At least I had very good inspiration!

I love you Grandma!
Your namesake,
Liv

Show & Tell: Grandma's Family Portrait

Welcome to my contribution to Show & Tell. When your done, be sure to check out the rest of the class!

This is a photo of my grandmother as a young mother with her family. The photo was taken around 1932. I find it so facinating to see a glimpse into my grandmother's life when she would have been closer to my age and not the age in which I knew her.

From the left to right:

My grandmother's paternal aunt, (in the hat) her father, (in the stripped blouse) her mother, the man standing behind is her brother, the girl in the middle is her sister, My grandmother is standing behind the woman in the hat (who I can't identify as well as the gentleman behind her), the kid with the high collared jacket is her cousin, the man holding the baby is her husband (my grandfather) and the baby is my aunt.

I know you guys don't know what my grandparents looked like but I'm sure you belive me when I say, "They look like kids!!".

How did this fragile looking young girl become the strong woman that I knew? How did she raise three kids during WWII during a time of rations? How was she able to handle being a mother while working odd typing jobs, cooking, getting food on the table, being a Girl Scout leader, canning, baking, tending a garden, all while supporting her husband through graduate school?

I know how. Because she kicked ass. That's how. Those are now the genes I am calling on to kick infertility's ass.

Show and Tell: Grandma's Passport

Welcome to Show and Tell! After you've read this (and let me know you did by commenting!) please check out what the rest of the class has to view!

Today I'd like to share my Grandmother's Passport. But, before I do, I think a little bit of history is in order to understand what it means to me.

My parents met in Central America. They spent the first eighteen months of my life down there. My father, a six foot two -American geophysicist, met my four foot nine -Guatemalan
mother at a New Year's party. They married there and eventually were expecting and living in The Dominican Republic. My father was pretty set on having me be born "in the U.S.", so he would fly my mother to all her doctor's appointments in Puerto Rico where it was planned I'd be born. I was due on Christmas Day.

My grandparents (my father's parents) made special plans to come down to Puerto Rico for the birth. They loved to travel in their motor home and so they started the trek driving from Ohio to Florida and then flying into San Juan. They only made it as far as Cincinnati. My grandfather died of a heart attack in his sleep. It was the week of Thanksgiving.

My devastated parents jumped on a plane and made their way to Ohio. Despite the fact that my mother was, (especially in her short stature) way too pregnant to be flying, she made it on the plane. She was wearing my father's overcoat and since she was leaning into him crying, no one noticed. That is until she took off said coat at 35,000 feet. A few jokes about Pan Am having to pay for my college education later, my parents made it to Ohio still pregnant.

Of course, there was no way she could make it back to Central America. I was born one month, one week and one day after my grandfather passed away. It was New Year's Day.

After going through something so tragic as the abrupt loss of a husband/father/grandfather, it meant so much to everyone to be looking forward to something much more hopeful like the birth of a baby. For no one more so than my grandmother. She held me in the hospital within the first hour. (No small feat 30 years ago...remember how they never even let fathers behind those doors?) My parents named me after her, and I forever became known as "Her precious namesake".

At 95 years old, five months ago, she became ill and two weeks later passed away. You'll probably be surprised when I say it was unexpected. She was in great shape for someone her age. She was the only one in the Assisted Living Center with a computer and Internet connection and knew how to use it. Although I knew over the last ten years that my time with her was getting shorter, I still can't tell you how hard it was to loose her.

I found her old passport in her office when she first became ill and looked it over. It was the passport she had when I was born. I looked at all the dates and the places and immediately thought of all the photos I was familiar with of her travels. After I was born in Ohio, eventually my parents went to Guatemala to show me off to my mother's side of the family and then to Venezuela for a while when my dad's company moved him there. Grandma spent about 8 months down there. She even taught English for a while.

I used the passport as inspiration when I had to give a eulogy at the service. Here is a excerpt from it,

I know I was special to my grandmother because since I was born so shortly after my grandfather passed away I helped heal her heartache and she was special to me because she was the only grandparent I have ever really known. I will always be proud to carry her name but I will spend the rest of my lifetime never being able to fill her shoes.

A memento that I will always cherish is this passport. I have carried it with me everyday since I ran across it a few weeks ago. It was the same passport she used to visit me when I was just a baby in Central and South America, 30 years ago. Every place I have ever been, she has more than likely been there before me...

As I picture myself following in her footsteps I think about where she is right now. I think about how she didn't need her passport. Her visa was written by God paid for by our Lord and Savior. And lastly she will be waiting for me when my footsteps finally catch up to hers.

Amazingly, the first stamp in that passport to visit me in Guatemala is this one: May 19, 1979.


My husband and I were married in Guatemala, May 19th 2001.