Grandma Marie

I kind of skipped over the death of my grandmother on this blog. I couldn't attend her funeral at her home in Nine Mile Falls, WA and I didn't want to memorialize her on here. But, I just keep remembering things about her. She was your quintessential grandmother and she made for a good balance between my paternal grandmother, who did things a little differently. She lived on some family land in the country in Nine Mile Falls, WA which is just outside of Spokane and I spent every summer out there. My uncle's cows use the pasture that surrounds her house and every time she looked at them, I think a baby got loose. They had to tell her to quit looking at the cows. When I was a kid, she had a barn that was still used to store hay, back when hay was still put in rectangular bales. There was a rope hanging from the ceiling and my cousin and I would climb to the top of the hay bales and swing off on the rope. We would only stop for Schwann's push pops. We would have rope burn and hay scratches all over us. Then we would go play dolls in the basement. The basement was scary because there was a painting of a witch in there and a huge rock that I guess couldn't be dug up, so there was a curtain hiding it. We walked as far around that curtain as we could. The basement also had the only shower in the house. I would go as long without a shower as they would let me. Grandma would also tape all kinds of hallmark movies for me to watch. I remember watching the summer Olympics out there. She said I couldn't watch gymnastics without getting on the floor and stretching. It's true. Have you tried to watch the Biggest Loser without doing at least one push up? Anyway, my summers where filled with horseback riding, four wheeling, and playing with my cousin. She would also keep her garden gnomes in the shed until I visited and she let me put them out in her gardens. I would color coordinate the gnome's hats to the flowers. I was there in the late 90s and picked up a rock in her yard and found ash from Mt. St. Helen's eruption in 1981. She said it got everywhere. She also had the cutest dog named Precious when I was a kid. I still love Precious. She had sweet spaniel ears and smelled like doggy perfume.
When Grandma met my husband for the first time, we all warned him that she would try to kiss him. So she asked for her kiss and Nick went in for the cheek. Grandma never liked that, so she waited until the last second and turned her head so he had to plant one on her lips. She also got really nervous if you spent more than 1 minute in the bathroom. And she would come check on you. Her bathroom door was about as thick as a closet door and may be a closet door and after your minute was up, she was on the outside of the door asking if you were alright. This ended up making you nervous and made it almost impossible to get out of there in another minute. Getting the second check on was worse than the first. My dad tells a story of getting up in the middle of the night to visit the bathroom, only to run into my grandmother leaving it and she said, "I left the seat warm for you." He said it was the worst thing she had ever said to him and he still has trouble even if the chair he is sitting in has been warmed by someone else. She had a wood burning stove in her house when I was a kid. I thought it was so cool to shove your trash in the stove every day, with Walt's help, of course. My Aunt Isla did replace her stove with a pellet stove. I don't think she liked it as much.
Grandma went into the hospital just before she died and was diagnosed with Leukemia, although no one was going to put her through the test for that since it is very painful. My cousin Wes was visiting with her one day and Grandma asked him where his girlfriend was. Wes told her that she was at work or whatever and Grandma asked, "How many times have you been married anyway, Wes?" Well, Wes replied, "Not as many times as you Grandma." Which is true, but Grandma gave him the finger. No one even knew that she knew how to give the finger or that she was that coherent. My mom is still giggling that her mother gave someone the finger.
My mom was able to leave work and go to Washington. Grandma had signed her DNR papers and since my mom is a nurse she took my grandmother back to her house so she could be more comfortable. Grandma only lasted 3 days after my mom arrived. It was snowing. Grandma had been devastated by the death of her husband Walt in 2002 and was ready to join him. My family spread her ashes where his had been spread around the gazebo that he built for her.