My grandma Crossen, my mom's mom, passed away last week. She was my last grandparent, and my children's last great-grandparent.
(picture from the funeral program and her obituary)
I grew up living far away from them, though we visited when we could. My mom's parents lived in Bountiful, but the morning after I came from Missouri for my first summer term at BYU I was told my grandpa Crossen had passed away. That was June 1997. My grandma was a widow for 22 years.
It was a good funeral service. Stories told in her life sketch overlapped some I heard at her siblings' funerals (like her sister in
this post). The Patten family was close. But what a childhood! Growing up in the Great Depression on a fruit farm near where the Provo MTC is now, in a tiny house where she'd wake up to ice in the winter. Her mother died when she was 15, and she had to run the house and raise her siblings and help on the farm and make their clothes and wash them in a wringer washer and dry them on the line and can hundreds of bottles of fruit. We have things so easy now. Her invention to help drain the washer tub won her a 4H trip to Chicago. And I loved re-hearing the story of the watch her father bought her for Christmas.
There was a great story about how when she was a little girl, and a neighbor friend were trying to start a little bonfire, and accidentally lit the whole barn on fire. They ran and hid in the irrigation ditch because they were very afraid of the worst spanking in their lives. When they finally came out, they were hugged so tightly because everyone thought they were in the barn and had died.
I didn't realize until the funeral, how many things my grandma taught my mom that I now teach my children. Songs and little games and poems and stories. Sucking honey suckle, blowing through a blade of grass, "Shoe the old horsey, shoe the old mare," "Little Petey, Petey Roo," "Zip zip your zipper up to your chin...." I think I instantly loved Yellowstone National Park last year after years away, because it came through my blood. My grandma went every year for two weeks.
My parents drove out for the funeral. I am sad for my mom, and my aunts and uncles, because their mom is now gone. My mom isn't able to say much now, or move as easily, but it was good to spend time with her and remember the good in the past.
Here we are at the luncheon after the service on Saturday. My parents, then my niece Kaylee. In the background are tables of my aunts and uncles and cousins, and my mom's remaining aunts and uncles and her cousins.
Here are the two brothers of mine who live in Utah, Joe and Peter, and their funny and pretty and amazing wives, Susan and Mindy.
Then Millie squealed for another cupcake, and Peter took selfies when I stepped away.
JB later found kids in the Relief Society Room.
I am glad my children were able to come to the funeral.
Since my parents were in town, JB cooked for them on Sunday, and Joe and Susan and Kaylee came back up from Springville, and Peter and Mindy and their 3 came over (PS I am so glad they are back from Japan).
The weather cooperated so we could fit all 17 of us around the same table outside (our inside is too small).
Millie thought Susan's Texas Sheet Cake was just the thing.
And look, another Peter selfie on my phone.
Funerals remind me about trying to strengthen relationships with family here on earth, but also to be a better person. I want my children to remember the good -- and that I tried hard, that I loved them, and that I loved the gospel. My aunt Carole talked about knowing the Church was true because her parents knew it. I hope my children know their Heavenly Parents love them, because their earthly parents love them -- and show it.
