TRIBUTE TO MY GRANDMA DELMA

This morning I found out that my last remaining grand parent, Grandma Delma, had passed away while sleeping. She is my mom's mom and was the last of that generation for me. She would have been 86 on December 3. (born 1922!)

Today was both sad and happy. I was happy that my grandma was no longer trapped in an aging earthly tent, but sad that the memories with her physical presence have come to an end. It was hard watching my kids wrestle with their first close family death this morning. I was sad to see her go and happy she lived so long and shared so much with me.

On the memory note, I have lots to celebrate. I know you should not play favorites, but as grandparents go, I think my Grandma Delma was the most influencial on my life. Here's both the impact she had on me and what I'll miss the most. If you never knew my grandma, then let me introduce you. If you did, please enjoy the walk down memory lane with me.

LIVE GENEROUSLY, FOR I WILL MISS HER GENEROSITY.

• If my grandma was anything, it was generous. She put several of her grand children through college both in tuition and providing room and board. She gave financially until the day she died for causes she believed in. Her well earned pension checks allowed her to provide for not just her own aging needs, but to bless a lot of others, all the way up to her death. She did not hoard her time or her money, but spent them all liberally on many people beyond herself. She gave years and years and years of her life to teaching children and there are literally thousands upon thousands of readers in this world to whom they owe Delma Morton a great debt of gratitude. She eventually went onto teach other teachers at the college level and was always a well loved and treasured mentor. She even started her own line of books for early readers. That business never made her a ton of money, but it empowered her vision and her generosity.

• I cannot ever remember a time when there was not an envelope with $20 in it for me on my birthday and then some generous check at Christmas for our entire family. After I got married and had kids, they each got $20 for their birthdays too... like clockwork. I think I might have to lobby that our family start a birthday fund in honor of grandma. Maybe we can keep sending $20 to kids and grandkids for generations to come.... "Here's $20. Love Grandma Delma."

CAMP WITH YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY, FOR I WILL MISS CAMPING WITH GRANDMA.

• Grandma Delma loved camping. As a kid growing up, I spent at least 2 weeks every summer in the boyhood wilderness of camping and fishing in streams with my grandma, my sister, my 4 cousins, and my mom/dad. We have hiked and fished and cooked and sang campfire songs and experienced so many things together. I could blog for the next 3 weeks straight on nothing but stories of experiences in a tent and a car and maybe a trailer with grandma. I can count on one hand (with several fingers left over) the number of summers I have missed camping at Richardson's Grove camp ground with my grandma from the age of 2 to 34. All the way up to the end, she insisted on joining us for camping anytime we were there. As I talked with my mom this morning, she said we'd have at least one more family reunion for grandma, cuz we're gonna leave her ashes there. I can think of no better place than camping at Richardson's Grove for her body to rest. I'm sure she would spread them there herself if she could.

• I will camp for the rest of my life and I will have a smore while poking the fire in some fashion that will annoy my father in honor of my grandma. This I decree.

GOOD COOKING IS TO BE CELEBRATED, FOR I WILL MISS MY GRANDMA'S COOKING.

• My grandma cooked breakfast and dinner for my grandpa every day of their married life I think. It's a good thing he died first, for he would have likely starved to death.

• She baked and cooked everything she could from scratch for decades on end. I never remember a time growing up where we did not have a pantry full of gradma's canned jam and jellies, canned tuna, smoked salmon, peaches, green beans, apples, apple sauce, plums, or something else. In college I had her teach me to can tuna, in the hopes that I could keep the tradition alive. I have some catching up to do if that is going to be true though.

• I remember picking berries with her in alleys and hillsides and watching her peel apples by the bucket full in her kitchen or when camping in preparation for a fresh pie. I was always amazed at how she could do that so fast and effortlessly while us kids just clamored around waiting for the scraps to steal.

• I once even remade the wooden handle for her on a kitchen paring kife she had sharpened and used so many times that the wooden handle was all but gone and the blade was nothing but a piece of tin. I offered to buy her a new one but she insisted on keeping that one, so I made her a new handle for it. I really wish I still had that knife, but I'm sure it was tossed by someone at some point in the past decade.

EAT ICECREAM WITH ANY AND EVERY MEAL SOMEONE WILL LET YOU, FOR I WILL MISS EATING ICE CREAM WITH MY GRANDMA.

• My grandma loved ice cream... read LOVED ICE CREAM! She would eat it with you, sneak it with you, bitch at you if you were out of it, pull over and stop to buy some on a long drive, walk to the store to get it daily while camping, and the list could go on. I think some morning this week I just might have to go get a cup of black coffee, a piece of pie and some ice cream and enjoy a breakfast for my grandma. If there is no ice cream in heaven, God might have a problem :)

WORK HARD AT WHAT YOU LOVE, FOR MY GRANDMA LEFT ME A GREAT EXAMPLE OF A WORK ETHIC THAT IS HARD TO FIND TODAY.

• My kids will mostly remember a woman who had worked so hard she believed she had earned some years on her butt. Towards the end, getting grandma to go for a walk required a lot of tugging, cuz she would much rather have sat down and done a word search in her easy chair than have walked to the bathroom.

• But that's not the grandma I grew up with. The grandma I grew up with could work your butt off. She was tireless with yardwork and always had a beautiful garden. She woke up early and stayed up late, long after grandpa had gone to bed. She would come to our house and instead of expecting to be entertained, she expected to help. My grandma taught me by example that if you want something in life, you don't wait around for someone to just hand it to you, you work hard for it. She grew up in an Iowa farm with traditional values and an old school work ethic she honed through the Great Depression and teaching in a one room school house.

• Truth be told, she probably sprinted a little too fast at the beginning and ran out of steam at the end. She kinda "walked" the last 5 years of her life. But the other side of that coin is she earned that final few laps of coasting by the sweat on her brow. I know of few people who could have kept up with my grandma's drive for about 90% of her life span.

AND FINALLY, A FEW PICTURES. I don't have a lot on my computer since most of my memories are long before the days of the digital camera, but here's a few I have held onto from the digital age.

OUR GIFT TO OUR PARENTS FOR LAST CHRISTMAS. A "FINAL" PHOTO SHOOT BEFORE THE CRAWFORDS HEADED TO UGANDA.


THREE GENERATIONS IN DECEMBER 2007. WOULD HAVE BEEN FOUR GENERATIONS, BUT MY FAMILY HAS ONLY BOY GRAND CHILDREN!


GRANDMA AND TJ EATING ICE CREAM AT FENTONS IN BERKELEY. YEP, THEY FINISHED THE WHOLE THING!


JUST A NICE SMILE AT CHERYL'S HOUSE.


CAMPING AT RICHARDSON'S GROVE. PROBABLY WISHING SHE COULD GET UP AND POKE THE FIRE.

AT LEGO LAND WITH OUR FAMILY, PICTURED HERE WITH SHANNON.


ENJOYING ONE OF WHAT BECAME HUNDREDS OF WORD SEARCHES IN THE LAST FEW YEARS.


Grandma Delma. Thank you. You are loved and you will be missed. I'll meet you in heaven in the redwoods. I'm sure God has those there.