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Happy Birthday Jaz!

rob333 (zone 7b)
11 years ago

Michelle,

I hope you enjoyed your day very very much. That you received some great looking shoes, and ate great tasting food, and enjoyed great company!

Comments (9)

  • anneliese_32
    11 years ago

    Happy birthday from me too.

  • mawheel
    11 years ago

    Happy Birthday!

  • gabriell_gw
    11 years ago

    I hope your day was special, wish you would post more often.Happy birthday!

  • husky004_
    11 years ago

    Happy Birthday, you share the same as my DH.

  • rob333 (zone 7b)
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    (psst, it was the first, same as Marda's)

  • jazmynsmom
    11 years ago

    Thanks all! It was a bittersweet birthday. (Mine was the 1st, I think Marda's is the 3rd.)

    The first call I got that day was my mom, wishing me a happy birthday --- and letting me know my grandma (her mother) had passed just moments prior to her call.

    Steve was out of town. Co-workers brought cake and sang to me. Friends stopped by, bringing cards, gifts and food, to enjoy drinks by the fire pit. I booked flights home for my sister and me (frequent flyer miles come in handy).

    I just returned home today, having been surrounded by my large family in my hometown since Thursday. The experience was bitter, sweet, happy, sad, invigorating and exhausting. My face hurts from smiling, my sides hurt from laughing, my heart aches for losing her, and my liver hurts because this is the Irish side of the family.

    She was the last of my grandparents. I was lucky to have her still. As the eldest of her eldest, I'm now older than she was when I was born. Both of my grandmothers were buried on May 7 (eight years apart).

    She lost her vision in her very early teens, cried for an hour when she learned of the inevitability of it, realized it didn't change anything, and never complained. She graduated from high school (with the help of dear friends who read her homework to her every night), and was even Homecoming Queen her senior year.

    She was exceptionally beautiful, resiliently optimistic, had a quick wit, excellent sense of humor, and always had a song in her heart and on her lips. She and my grandpa had six kids in a ten year span, and she did most of the child-rearing while he worked long and irregular hours for the railroad. She was an exceptional housekeeper and cook, and she babysat for many of her nieces and nephews, and provided full time childcare for six of her 13 grandchildren, myself included.

    She did a lot of international travel, even after my grandpa died. She was a fiercely independent and competent woman, which is why when she, like several of her siblings before her, got Alzheimer's, it was so difficult for her to handle. It was difficult for us too.

    Her body and mind were broken, so her death was a release and relief.

    It's been an exhausting week.

  • west_gardener
    11 years ago

    jazmynsmom, this is your birhday and Happy
    Birthday to you.
    And many more.

  • petaloid
    11 years ago

    I'm very sorry to hear about your beloved grandmother's passing. I hope you can get some rest. Take care.

  • rob333 (zone 7b)
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    (((Michelle))) You're an amazing woman. Truly! A birthday wish for you, and it's become a dedication to your grandmother. You are so selfless. I am smiling at you and crying at the same time; my heart breaks for you. It's hard when the last grand parent goes. I remember it well. (((Michelle))) I am so very sorry.

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