Soooo.... Last night JE and I went to the 65th anniversary party for my Grandparents. What a joyous event. It was a Fiesta with food (by Acapuco's, care of Frank and Linda.) Luscious cake (care of Jane) and decor by yours truly.
Gram looked radiant and her charming youthful self (though perhaps a bit uncharacteristically frazzled.) Gramp was delivered to the event in a wheelchair and looked very pale and fragile, though very much there mentally. They seemed to have a great time. It was a small party with just a few friends and just a few family. The Bennets were there, those neighbors from 40 years ago whose 50th anniversary party we just attended. Frank and Linda flew from Indiana to attend the event, Jane came from Mammoth, Don from Reno, JohnE and I from Orange County.
Frank and Linda put together a family album with lots of family photos including some of my dad I hadn't seen before.
It was amazing. All those years of history. I so love my grandparents and honor them. I am so happy for them and their companionship of sixty-five years.
Gramp will be 91 this September. I found him once on a census, he was just 16. He had not even met Hope at that time. He was still well, vibrant and young. I hate to see him so not well. Worse yet, I hate to see Gram so frazzled. Gram is a person who gets up every morning and makes sure the world is spinning her direction. And if it isn't, she fixes it. She has been keeping Gramp up and going all her life long. Gramp may not be around too much longer, and I worry for Gram. What will she do with herself? Maybe I can persuade her to go on a road trip with me, go to visit Palm Springs, or take her to visit Jane, circumnavigate the globe...
And now for something completely different...
OK, Now I have to talk about dates.
August 3rd, 2006 I met with a new doctor, Dr. Gersh. In February 2005 I had surgery to remove uterine fibroids. Well, they removed over 16 of them. When I met with Dr. Gersh and told her about this, she said, Removing that many fibroids can completely deform the uterus. I was devastated. I had had the surgery to try to make my uterus a much more friendly place for a baby to grow. Well that evening JE's sister Meri, her husband Nate and their new baby Solee came to visit. I was in no mood for company, so I went to the mall and looked for something to wear to Malcolm and Laura's wedding (Malcolm is JohnE's oldest sister's oldest son.) Couldn't find anything, but I had pulled myself together enough by that point that I could start answering my phone again and perhaps work into gathering with family. So we met up with them and went out to dinner. They stayed for a few days, we had a great time at the beach, eating, hanging out at the Irvine Spectrum, etc...
August 5th, 2006 JohnE's mom came. I love his mom, we get along swimmingly. So we had quadruple company! The Simpsons were still with us. They left that Sunday. Monday I took Mom to Long Beach so she could ship her car to Hawaii. She and Dad were leaving to go teach in Hawaii BYU the following week. So we left JE at home sick and drove to Long Beach. When we got home I sewed and I sewed. Thanks to mom's suggestion. It is silly for me to think that I can just walk into a store and buy clothes! I am 6'3"!!! My range on the size spectrum isn't met by even the "tall" category in most catalogs! I made a really great jacket and skirt. It was so therapeutic. I sat for about 8 hours sewing and loved what I made. It fits!!!
August 8, We took off for Utah around 3:30 in the afternoon. JohnE drove, bless his heart, he was still so sick. I think driving helped take his mind off his illness. We spent Wednesday floating around running errands and visiting the Felts and Matt and April. Thursday we went to Malcolm and Laura's wedding. It was nice. It was fun to hang out with family and be together with them. I miss them a lot. Saturday we went boating at Deer Creek Res. It was so much fun. We went on Nate and Meri's boat with some of the Felts. Then we went out for lunch. We had said that we were going to meet at the Simpson and watch a movie outside, but 2 things happened. One, there were microbursts and rain, and two, JE and I stopped at our friend Amy Robinson, the Artist. For quite a while I had been thinking about her and some of the art from her college final show 4-5 years ago. She had made a series of sculptures. They were swan women; large sentinel type swan bodies with female human faces. They were beautiful and terrifying. She also had a cluster of wooden boxes with nests and laying on the straw of each was a small signet with a human baby face. All the faces were different and expressed different emotion. Well, in my thoughts, I wanted one of these little babies, and I knew exactly which one I needed. So we went to see Amy and see if she still had any of her swan babies. We talked and told her what was going on. We sat outside next to her mom's squash heap (a huge pile of squash plants trying to take over the world!) As we talked clouds were forming in the sky and the it started to rain, nothing major, just spotty fat drops. Well the sky was filled with clouds, but on the tree trunk, just above our heads, there was a golden spot of sun. We stood on the logs that surround her fire ring and looked for the streaming finger of light that was creating that tiny dazzle, but when you are that close to the thing, it is impossible to see. Sometimes I guess you have to be an onlooker to the scene to realize how close that Heavenly Finger is. JohnE suggested there was a rainbow around so we started looking for that, too. We found it, between the peach and the walnut tree. Just faint and just a tiny portion of it.
Amy told me she only had one swan baby left, but that it was mine if I wanted it. It was the one I wanted, the sleeping baby signet. When Amy brought her out on a red velvet cushion (stuffed with straw) and handed her to me, I cried. I hugged and cried, and wept. It was as if the all the tension and disappointment and longing of the past 6 years were finally satiated. JE and I hugged and wept over this fragile sleeping thing. I know now and I knew then, that this is just a piece of art, a bit of clay and that it will never really take the place of having our own children. But I have Hope now, the kind of hope that had been lost along the way. It has been a very difficult road, and not to many sensitive to it. We left and continued our journey.
So we went to the the Simpson and watched Superman Returns with the Fam. It was really great. Fun to be with Family.
Sunday we all went to church with Mom and Dad. They gave their farewell address to their ward. Afterward we went to Mom and Dad's and had a very big family dinner.
That lasted pretty much the rest of the day. It was so nice to see the family. They will surely be missed! I am so glad we can still call them!
So JE and I drove back to CA. Malcolm and Laura dropped by the following Friday. We took them to the Cheesecake Factory and had a great time. Saturday we went to Crystal Cove and the OC Swapp meet. It was great.
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