The Silver Lining

Above, the cousins that made it to the showing.
Below, Odessa and my Grandpa

As I explained it to Charles, Nana's mommy went to go live with Jesus on Saturday and we are all sad because we will miss her.

Grandma Moliassa lead a wonderful life and that was beautifully illustrated by the amazing "funeral parties" (I told Charles that was where we were going) we recently attended.

My Grandma was a teacher, a mother of nine, a grandmother to 22, and a great grandmother to 14 (I think). This partly contributed to the giant attendance at the showing and the funeral. These parties really were the silver lining to this sad event. We were all sad that Grandma passed away, but it was wonderful to see everyone.

My favorite part was hanging out with the cousins. My cousin Carrie became quite the ring leader. She got us all together to brainstorm memories of my Grandma. This unlocked memories of food and festivities that I had almost forgotten. She took all the brainstorming and sewed it together into 6 wonderful mini eulogies. All the cousins that were there stood up while they were read. Topics included games we used to play, my Grandma's cooking and her fashion sense. I never thought about it before, but I think I get that from my Grandma. I don't think I will be stealing any of her clothes, but I think the following line was in one of the speeches: "few could pull off Grandma's love of color, glitter, and patterns." I like to think that maybe I am one that can follow in her footsteps that way.

I shared the part about games we used to play. This was a lot of fun for me, so allow me to elaborate on some of the childhood game rules and details.

• Quicksand - This game takes place on the stairs leading down to the basement at my Grandparents house. Some players are being sucked into the quicksand (sliding down the stairs) and some are saving them (pulling them back up). This is a very physical game and I am very surprised we never got hurt. It is especially surprising because my grandparents' stairs were lined with canned vegetables.
  
• Red Rover - Everyone knows about this game that is generally banned from playgrounds. I think we usually did get hurt playing this game. The game works out fine as long as all the kids are the same size, but with 22 grandchildren, you get quite an age range. Us smarter bigger kids knew it was easier the bust through two little kids holding hands.
• Haunted House - This is one that I forgot until Wednesday. We thought we were very scary and we would set up haunted houses to make the adults walk through.
• Kearsley Lake - Disclaimer: Don't swim in Kearsley Lake. My Grandparents live on Kearsley Lake. I am no expert, but I think it is really just a damned off section of the Flint River. We swam in that lake all the time. It is not clean. Several kids stepped on several broken bottles, but you can't convince kids to stay out of a lake.
  
• Video Store - In the war that was VHS vs. Betamax, my Grandpa was on the Betamax side. When his side lost the war, he bought up all the machines and movies he could find. This meant that he had his own video store in the basement. We loved to play video store and we loved to watch movies that were only semi-appropriate for children. Greece, Greece 2, Jaws, Sheena, and Watcher in the Woods were the favorites.

My favorite new story was told by my cousin Mikey. As we were all throwing out different memories, Mikey asked if everyone remembered Grandma putting name tags in our pockets so that if we got lost, people would be able to contact our parents. None of us remembered that. It turns out that Mikey had a habit of wandering off while my Grandparents were taking a nap. They would put a name tag with their contact information in his pocket so that if he was found he would be returned. That cracks me up.