My Grandma Parks

My cousin Lori is an amazing writer. Her blog, Fingerprints, is on my sidebar. Today her entry is about our Grandma Parks (paternal side). Read it here.

She wrote something that brings me to tears each time I think of it:
"...93 years of living, and Grandma is growing weary."

We've been on the phone numerous times over the past couple of days, talking about the details of Grandma's life. I cannot learn enough about her and wish so much that I knew more. Or that I could be the one to provide details that have slipped through others' memories. But I am not that person. I am the one who spent summer days running through their fields, swimming in the ditches, eating warm bread. The one who never sat down and asked Grandma to tell me her stories ... until it was too late.

There are many stories and questions I had for her over the years of visiting her in assisted living. I'd ask her about when she was a girl. What made her fall in love with Grandpa (she raised her hand to her neck and gave a nervous laugh and said, "Honestly, Valerie.") - She was always private and I have always found that endearing and sweet because I am not (obviously).

I remember when Grandpa passed away, and we sat around her kitchen table at the farm and she told me so many things that I didn't know. That she had lost a son, that she loved Chinese culture, that she loved when we'd eat out without Grandpa so that she could try new things.

Today she sleeps in a nursing home in Rapid, with her blood sugar and oxygen levels swingly widely. We will be heading up there when Wayne returns from Houston and I pray that I am able to hold her hand and tell her how much I love her and how much she means to me before it is too late.

To tell her,  like Lori, I bake Schwann's bread because the smell takes me back to her kitchen. That each and every time I make chocolate chip cookies with Caeden, I think of how Grandma and I spent many afternoons doing the same thing. Tell her that I wish I had had her teach me to sew. That I wish I would have had the ear for the piano. That I wish I would have taken her out to eat more often. Tell her that a picture she took - of Grandpa and I (as a baby) - is framed in Claire's room. That I think of her each time I look at it.

Mostly, I just want to tell her I love her. My Grandma is growing weary.