In Memory of Grandma

My grandma Shirley was born in 1921 in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.  She used to tell me such wonderful tales about her life with her family there.  She was married in 1941 and had four daughters–one of whom is my mother–and raised them alone after my grandfather died at age 49.  My mother was three years old.
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I can’t remember when exactly I became aware of the fact that Grandma was losing her memory.  I imagine the adults in the family noticed some time before we children did.  But by the time I was in my first year of college, Grandma needed help to do almost everything–from a reminder to eat breakfast to a note detailing how to turn on the television.  Soon she forgot who we were, and I can’t imagine how painful that must have been for my mom and aunts.  The last thing to go were her memories of her childhood.  Long after she stopped remembering who I was when I came to visit she continued to tell the stories of her siblings and her parents and her life in Grand Rapids.
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My grandma passed away in 2004.  She was the matriarch of our family and I think it turned us all inside out for a while.  About a year after she was gone, my mother gave me a box filled with journals and notebooks and calendars–they had been grandma’s during her last few years of life.  As she struggled to fight Alzheimer’s Disease, she chronicled her days in detail; who came to visit, a cute anecdote about the dog, when she had a cup of coffee.  Mom gave me those journals hoping I could do something with them.  And that is precisely what I hope to do here.
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We miss you, Grandma.