My grandma died this week.
My sister called today to tell me the news. My parents are out of the country on vacation, so there's a bit of confusion about the details of exactly when, etc. I'm going to go to the funeral this weekend in Fargo, ND.
Grandma Sheppard has had Alzheimer's for quite a while now. I haven't seen her since summer 2002. When my sister and I dragged our hubbys there for a visit, Grandma was still lucid enough to know Jessica and I, although she kept fogetting who Gavin and Pat were. My parents went up there this summer, and said she had absolutely no idea who anybody was, where she was, or what was going on. For that reason, I have been avoiding visiting again. She wouldn't know I was there, and I'd rather remember her the was she used to be.
Like many in my generation, my first impulse when thinking about somebody is to go Google their name. When I Googled Inez (Cooper) Sheppard, the only relevant article that came up was my Aunt Judy's obituary (she died earlier this year in a car wreck). So, I think it's up to me to tell the internet who Grandma was - not the dry stuff of obituaries, but about my grandmother.
Grandma Sheppard lived in Mandan, ND from as early as I can remember. She lived in a 1-story with a basement that had the most odd stuff in it. Like an old phone with a crank, a vibraphone, and organ, and my dad's old butterfly collection that used to really freak me out as a kid. Grandma didn't have many
toys for a kid to play with, but all that odd stuff sure was fun. Another treat we got at Grandma's was bubble baths. I think that may be the only experience I had with them until I was a teenager.
Periodically, my parents would go on vacations without us kids and Grandma would come to Casper to take care of us. She was a very sweet woman, but was always somewhat forgetful (and hard of hearing). On time when I was around 12 years old, she had driven us to our church on Sunday morning, and we were coming back home. I was giving her directions to our house since she was never very good at remembering such things. I had successfully directed her onto the street that dead ended at a T-junction, with our driveway straight ahead. When I told her to go straight at that T-junction, she wouldn't believe me for a while. I always had to be somewhat responsible for things when she was there with us alone, but she was fun to be with.
Grandma was one of seven children, I think. Besides Grandma, I only knew well three of her sisters that never married. Agnes, Ruth, and Faye used to come visiting to Casper at the same times as Grandma. In the evenings when they were visiting, they used to play Whist for hours. When I was old enough, I learned to play with them. They weren't very good card players. They'd forget who lead what, bicker about the scoring, and sneak peeks at the card at the cut.
When I think of Grandma Sheppard, the first thing that comes to mind is her smile. Her teeth were somewhat stained with years and years of coffee drinking, and she had white hair and wrinkles as long as I can remember. But her eyes always lit up when she smiled, which made her so beautiful.
My grandfather Sheppard (Wilbur Sheppard) died when I was pretty young; I think I was about 5 years old. I don't really remember him much, and the funeral is a hazy memeory. My grandpa Louden died about 5 years ago - just before I got married. I wasn't able to go to the funeral because it was just about finals time at UW and my parents wanted me to stay there. When my Aunt Judy passed last May, I didn't go to that funeral due to the distance and timing with the attempt to launch STS-114. This will be the first family funeral I've attended since I was 5, and I'm a bit nervous. Since my extended family lives so far away, I'm not accustomed to seeing them all the time (or very often at all, really). As such, I think I've been able to take their deaths rather intellectually. Actually attending the funeral, though, will make it a bit more real I think. I don't know how I feel about that.
9
8.1
7.1
6