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Sunday, November 30, 2008

"You Light Up My Life" Sunday 11/30/08 edition


These people have had a huge impact on my life & will continue to do so even well after they are both gone. I felt that it would be appropriate to honor my Grandma & Grandpa today, which would have been his 89th birthday. I still love & miss him very much, but am very grateful to still have my grandma in my life. The following is what I wrote to share in a 'memories' book for my Grandma this Christmas. I know that she will enjoy reading it & I hope that you do too.
So to my Grandma & Grandpa~I love you guys!

My Memories of Grandma & Grandpa

Many of my memories of Grandma & Grandpa consist of sitting around the table spending time with them. I remember coloring at their table as a child, sitting at the table listening to Grandma sing a lullaby to one of my baby cousins and of course, enjoying one of the many “light lunches” that we have shared over the years with them. The memories that are most special to me though are of when we would sit around the table playing games.

Two games I will always connect with Grandma & Grandpa are “Rummikub” and “Up & Down the River”. Any time my family was at their house, you could bet that at some point “Rummikub” would be brought out of the playroom for all of us to play. We would all sit around the table trying to be the first one to win and it was great to be the winner, but they always made sure that the last person didn't feel like the “loser” too. If you were the last one, you would end up with Grandma on one side and Grandpa on the other side both trying to help you figure out how to get all of your tiles played-very rarely did they fail to find a way for you to “win” too.

Up & Down the River” is another game that always makes me think of Grandma & Grandpa when I play it. It was the first “real” card game I learned to play and they were the ones who taught my sisters and me to play it one time when we were sitting around our table at home. It was a simple game that was easy for us to understand and kept us content until we could figure out other card games like Pinochle.

Playing and learning the games with them was always fun, but many times it was the other things going on around the table that turned the games into such great memories for me. I remember listening to both of them telling stories while we were playing the games and there was always laughter, whether it was laughing at a funny story or joke that they had told or whether it was just laughing along with Grandma as she got herself tickled over some story that she was telling, we were always in for a good time when it came to “game time” with Grandma & Grandpa.

There are so many other memories I could share, but these are the things that still to this day always bring a smile to my face when I get the chance to play them either around Grandma's table or my own because they remind me of the many happy times that I have had the pleasure to spend with Grandma & Grandpa.

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