What Are We? The Addams Family?

I've shared with you Grandpa Ed's legs. Lots of people I know love the story behind his legs, but are really, really glad that they live at my house. I get it, if the roles were reversed, I'd be right there with you.

The other night, Jay and I had dinner with Mom and Bill at Grandma's house. As you can imagine, there is a lot of cleaning and sorting of stuff going on. A lot of it. (Side note: it was a lot easier to clean out Grandma Mary's house, because it was mostly junk. We took the items that had sentimental value, but she didn't own anything of value other than the house itself.)

One of the things Mom and Bill ran across were Grandma's dentures with the "cutters". Now, I know Grandma used to talk about her dentures with the "cutters", and she complained a time or two about not being able to chew as well without them, but I actually had zero idea what she was talking about.

We all just kind of humored her about her magic, cutting dentures. And then Mom and Bill found these ...

Yes, those are wire "cutters" on her molars.

Normally, I'd be completely disgusted about finding decades-old dentures tucked away in a cupboard somewhere, but I'm equal parts fascinated and disgusted by these. My first thought when Mom showed them to me was, "Grandma could eat the hell out of some steak with those!", followed quickly by "I would hate to bite my tongue!".

During our initial walk-through of the house, I claimed a couple of things: the yellow step-stool, the fridge (don't judge, it's the coolest fridge ever, and it's going to stay with the house for now), and this pair of pictures (?). I'm not sure exactly what they are, but ever since I was a little kid, I've loved these things.

They are made of pieces of bark and moss, so I don't know what to call them. Are they fiber art? Are they decoupage?

When going through Grandma's photo albums, we saw that this set started as a set of four. Two remain. The best we can figure is that they're 60 years old. The one big lie Mom ever told was about these picture-things, but that's her story, so you'll have to ask her about it.

Like Ed's legs, Jay was not thrilled with having these in the house. Lucky for him, I never intended them to go up in our house, they're in my office at work. I haven't hung them up yet (obviously), but they go well with my trail riding pictures.

Lord only knows what other treasures we'll unearth as we continue to clean out her house.

And Then There Were Three

One of the things that was important to my family, especially my grandmother and great-grandmother, was the fact that we had so many living generations. But not just living generations, no, living generations of women. That was very important to them. (I can't get the picture to insert properly, sorry 'bout that.)

Grandma Juanita, Ashinator, me, Great-Grandma Wheeler, Mom

Great-Grandma Wheeler died twenty or so years ago, leaving our family with only four generations. It was sad, but the hope was always there that we'd get back up to five. After all, we come from some tough stock, but we couldn't count on it, because Ashee was just a baby. When she and Micky got married in August, Grandma Juanita started wondering when we were going to get five.

Sorry for the blurry picture, it's the only one I have.

Sadly, it looks like we'll never make it to five generations again. Grandma Juanita passed away on Saturday, January 27 at 89 years old. It's been a shock, because up until the week before Christmas she'd been her usual ornery, sassy self.

On her 89th birthday

Her hospital visit before Christmas was short - she'd pulled a muscle in her back, but when she went to have it looked at, the docs realized she had Congestive Heart Failure. Now, CHF always sounds terrible, but there are a lot of people who can manage it well, and it appeared Grandma was one of them. Some diuretic and potassium and she was good as new. Well, as good as she was before.

Her back healed up and she resumed life as though nothing had happened. She had always said she was going to live to 107 (it started as 104, but kept getting prolonged), and we had no reason to doubt her.

Unfortunately, she developed a UTI and got severely dehydrated. Mom took her to the hospital, where they found not only a UTI and dehydration, but pneumonia and sepsis. Some IV fluids and antibiotics, and it looked like she was going to beat it. Mom made arrangements for her to go to a nursing home until she was strong enough to move back into her own place. Grandma never made it to the nursing home.

As incredibly hard as it is to lose Grandma, I'm thankful that she didn't suffer a long, protracted illness. She was fiercely independent and able to live on her own right up until she was hospitalized. Pneumonia is the great killer of the elderly, and it strikes fairly quickly, for which I am thankful. I know it would have been devastating for Grandma to lose her quality of life through cancer or a stroke.

Mom might be the bionic cowgirl, but she got her basic toughness from Grandma Juanita who suffered from polio as a child. You wouldn't know that one leg was two inches shorter than the other, or that she had scoliosis so bad that one side of her rib cage touched her hip bone. Not once did she complain, she just did what needed doing her whole life. I hope to be half as tough as those two women.

It's very weird knowing we only have three generations now; this is the "smallest" my family has ever been. It's very weird that Mom is now the matriarch (she can't ever, ever die).

I never got over the fact that there was no longer Lava soap in the bathroom after Grandpa Ed died (31 years ago, and I still look for that stupid soap), and I'm not sure I'll get over the fact that Grandma will no longer be sitting at her kitchen table, deck of cards in hand, ready to kick our butts in Gin Rummy.