16 Toothbrushes

My grandma passed away this past Christmas, and this may sound weird, but I think it has just recently hit me that she is really gone.  Because I went to school out of state, it was normal to go for months without seeing her. I would see her when I was home for the holidays, and then go back to school for a few months.  I think the reason the loss has been affecting me lately, is because I have never gone this long without seeing her.

Of all my grandparents, she was the one I was closest to.  Sometimes I'm afraid I will forget things about her and our memories as time goes by and I get older.  So, I decided it was important to write down the little things that I know I don't ever want to forget.

My grandma had 16 grandchildren, and if you looked in her bathroom cabinet you would find 16 toothbrushes.  Each with a different name written in sharpie on the handle.  These were on hand, of course, for the many, many sleepovers we had at Grandma's.  For the girls there were always extra hair ties and barrettes in the cabinet as well.  Sweets were never in short supply as there was always rootbeer in the fridge, cookies in the cookie jar, and gum drops in a glass dish on the coffee table (that probably explains why toothbrushes for each of us were always easily accessible...).  Before bed, we would always play cards together for hours.  Phase 10 was our favorite.  Sometimes at the sleepovers it was me, grandma and several cousins, sometimes me, Grandma and my brother, and sometimes just me and Grandma.  If my brother was there, Grandma and I would secretly talk strategy hours before the game began, to gang up on my brother in an attempt to put an end to his winning streak.  Grandma had all the good cable channels, and comfy bean bag chairs for the grandkids to sit on while we watched way more TV than we were ever allowed to watch at home.  In the mornings, we would always wake up to cinnamon toast waffles, toasted to the perfect amount of crunchiness, with butter and syrup evenly distributed in each square.

As we got older, the sleepovers happened less often, but we still visited frequently.  My Grandma had each of our senior pictures proudly displayed on a table in her living room.  Since there were 16 of us, we frequently competed to have our picture in the front row.  You always knew who had visited last, because they would have discreetly placed their picture in front of the others.

As we moved into adulthood, attending her grandchildrens' weddings became Grandma's new favorite activity.  My family can party pretty late into the night, but Grandma was not one to leave the festivities early.  She would frequently stay up with us til 2 or 3 in the morning, because she hated to miss even a minute of a family gathering.

I am very sad that she's gone.  I wish she had lived long enough to see me get married.  But, she lived a long, full life surrounded by tons of family who loved her very much. So much so that during her last few weeks, they literally had to ask us to leave the hospital because she was exceeding the limit for visitors.  She was almost 90 years old when she passed away, and I count myself very lucky to have had her in my life for 22 years.

Sometime in the early 90's....

June 2010. Not the greatest quality photo... but it shows her surrounded by her grandkids, and that's the important part