One of "those" days

Just something to brighten up this post.....aren't they pretty?

I'm having one of those days.....the days where there is so much to do and no urge to get it done. DD went with a friend and her friends family to our schools playoff game in Athens. SH is working for his little old women. I kind of wanted to go to the game, but wasn't comfortable driving two hours away alone. I don't mind the trip up but the trip back after dark when the weather says snow was just more than I wanted to get into alone today. SH thought about going with me for about 2 minutes and then the pile of stuff he needed to get done came to mind and he decided not to.

While sitting at home today I have been thinking about my Grandma W. a lot. She was the perfect Grandma. She would have been 91 this month. She was very healthy and her doctor always told her she would live to 100 because her heart and body were so healthy, but like many others, cancer got her before her body was ready to go. She was 85 when she died and she lived a long, happy life. My grandparents were both readers. They loved to read and work crossword puzzles at the kitchen table early in the morning before the rest of the world was up. When my grandma died there were thousands of books in her home and a building that my grandpa used as a recording studio when he sang with a quartet. When my grandma read a book she really read a book. When it was one of her favorite authors, such as Emerson, she read and reread the book and put her thoughts in the book.

The books she really enjoyed all looked like this. She would write parts she enjoyed, things that she thought about as she read it and notes about parts of other books or articles she had read about the book. With thousands of books we had to get rid of many of them but we all kept some that she had really enjoyed and it is a blessing to be able to go back and see her writing and read the thoughts she had as she was reading.

My grandma was very smart and a religious woman. She could get a map and show you the travels of Jesus during his life and tell you everything you would ever want to know about his life. She was my Sunday school teacher for quite a few years and she is one of the few people who made me listen and understand.

After my Grandma died, my aunt shared a story that grandma had told her years before. Grandma had not shared this story other than with one aunt because she said it meant so much to her that she could not stand it if someone "made light" of it.

This happened after the birth of one of her daughters. She had 9 children and I think this happened after the 5th child was born.

Right after the birth of this daughter she was having a very rough time emotionally. The doctor told her she had a nervous breakdown (but now we think probably post partum depression.) She was lying in her bedroom wondering how she would go on and raise her family, feeling desperate and scared. She was lying in the room awake and it was completely black. Suddenly the bedroom door opened ( and she said she couldn't have been sleeping because she could hear the noises in the rest of the house from the family) A figure appeared in the doorway. He had on a robe and was on a small donkey. She could see the folds of his clothes, but there was just light where his facial features would have been. She could clearly see the muscles in the donkeys chest and flanks move as it labored to carry the figure through the door and to the foot of her bed. It stopped and just stood silently. She remembered how vibrantly alive the donkey was- even as it stood still she had no doubt it was there. She said then a feeling of calm and peace flooded her and she looked away for a second and the figure was gone. She got better after that day and she used that throughout the rest of her life when she was having trouble or her faith waivered.

That story was one of the best things she could have left us, her family who misses her every day. It gives us great hope for our future and the promise that one day we will see her again.