A tribute to ordinary

My grandma is still with us but we're already planning her funeral...with her. It feels a little weird, a little special, and very hard.

My mom asked me if I would start preparing to share some memories. I don't really have specific story-like memories of Grandma because all our times together were so ordinary. My women's group encouraged me to just start writing the ordinary. So here we go.

I remember:

- Sitting at Grandma's kitchen island in Brandon on Boxing Day in my new shiny, yet itchy nightgown and watching her prepare breakfast.

- Walking through canola fields in Boissevain with Grandma helping her pull wild oats from the seed crop, the way she half disappeared in the yellow flowers, how she looked in her old straw hat.

- Riding overnight in the backseat with Grandma on the way to visit my aunts in Calgary. She folded my blanket under and wrapped it around my neck because she said that's how her own children had wanted to be tucked in. I still sleep that way.

- Grandma taking me to a one room cabin with no plumbing and me complaining the whole time about how people on my dad's side took me to bigger, nicer cabins. I must have hurt her feelings but she didn't say anything.

- Sitting in front of her bookshelf and reading her old books for hours. One was about a girl who went to university and said no to the pressure of drugs and alcohol. That book shaped my view of drinking and drugs (in a good way-I avoided them)...and university (not so good-I never went).

- Talking for hours with Grandma the times she stayed over while my parents went on holidays. When I was a boy-crazy teenager and my parents were the ones afraid to be seen in public with me, Grandma listened patiently to my stories about the boys at school, and instead of telling me I was too young for boys, shared with me about her love for Grandpa.

- Staying at Grandma's when I was very young, I think after one of my brother's was born. Playing playdough with her at the diningroom table and building block pyramids in Grandpa's study when they were pastoring in Manitou.

- Climbing around and pretending I was the pastor in the old church on their farmyard in Boissevain, by then converted into a storage area, until they told me it wasn't safe. Carrying cats up the 4 foot high stacks of grainsacks in the big shed and sitting up there for hours daydreaming. The church is gone but that shed and the little office inside it still look and smell like they did when Grandpa was working and whistling inside.

- Sitting with Grandma in the front pew of their church listening to Grandpa preach, loving the sound of his voice and wishing I would always remember what he said, but knowing I wouldn't.

- Celebrating my tenth birthday at their farm and having everyone making a big deal of it. Going to the beach.

- The feeling I got walking into her kitchen on the farm at Christmas. Playing under her ornate wood dining table. Being afraid of falling down the laundry chute. Peeking through the hole in the office wall made for the phone.

- Going to the ice cream shop at the end of the dirt road. Never knowing which flavour to get. Driving her crazy with my indecisiveness.

- The way she stubbornly won't believe K. had a disability. The way she looks at him and calls him her special boy and always believes through love and prayer he'll turn out just fine.

For better or worse, I've inherited Margaret Froese's sense of humour, work ethic, anxious spirit, love of books, stubbornness, and servant's heart. I may not have long, unique, or fascinating stories to tell about her, but I have moments. And feelings.

And the beauty of the ordinary.