This week marked a week of somewhat of a milestone… not the good kind though. This week was the first week, with the expectations of this post, where I didn’t write an article, post, blog or update social media within the last two years.

Why?

 Well, at the risk of being a downer, my grandmother died a week ago and I just had no creativity in me. Her name was Ada Briley Kinsaul, and she was 95 years old.

Tribute

I was very fortunate to have spent an entire day with her the week before she passed. She told me how she met my grandfather (whom I didn’t know because he died when I was a year old – dancing at the Moose Lodge). My grandmother told me when she met my grandfather, Leland, they were married five weeks later, in 1939, and rented a little apartment for $3 per week and she would shop for groceries for another $3 a week and that’s how they were able to make his $15 a week salary work. My grandmother was remarkable because she always had an encouraging word and never spoke ill of anyone. The week before she died, I walked into her hospital room and asked how she was doing. She said, “fine… couldn’t be better”. Even though she had told the doctors that week when cancer was found that she wasn’t going to take any treatments at all.

Happy

The last words she spoke to me were, “what ever happens to me, don’t grieve”. She said that when she dies that we should have a party, and waved her finger at me and said, “but no drinking!” I followed her advise on both accounts. I thought a lot about the not grieving part, and have realized that even in death she didn’t want anyone to be sad because of her. I am very thankful that I named my youngest daughter after her… Ada. At a family meal a few years ago, I got the idea that my kids should know what their names mean. My oldest, Kyle, means handsome. My second child (I call her upper middle) Emma, means universal. My third child Ed means stately (his middle name – Leland – means land lying fallow – which we all got a good laugh over) and then there is my youngest… Ada. Just like her great-grandmother, 90 years her senior – their name means happy, which makes perfect sense.