In her memory

I wrote these words for my grandmother, Charlotte Van Niekerk the week after she died. I was going to read them at her memorial service. It was too hard though. Too strange. My grandmother was a hard woman to love sometimes, but when I think of all the things she was, and did, it is easy to remember why I loved her. I've been thinking about her a lot lately. I thought I should share the words I had for my grandma and why there will never be anyone else like her for me:

I remember when I was about seven, and Grandma was already a volunteer at Sacred Heart Hospital I used to spend some of her Fridays volunteering right along with her at the hospital, running equipment to different floors.

I already felt really cool because it seemed to me I was doing a really grown up job, but Grandma made me feel even more special by making an identical smock like the one the hospital issued to her. She even stitched my name on the lapel. We were a team, in our matching peach colored volunteer uniforms and that memory will always be dear to me.

Grandma paid attention to the details, she took pleasure in the small things, she delighted in the things that many would find simple or mundane. Animals, flowers, even the smallest insect was something that she could find beauty in. As a little girl I remember that she took the time to teach me the names and qualities of all the different flowers.

We all know of her love for animals. The Animal Channel was on constant rotation in her living room. She would actually buy peanuts whenever she went grocery shopping, bring them home and rinse them off because she knew squirrels preferred them that way.

I will miss her newspaper clippings, listening to her stories, I will miss all the recipes that were her own and treasure the few I actually took the time to write down. I miss sitting in her garden and visiting the flea market with her, making sure to stop at every table.

There are so many things that made my grandmother loved, there are so many talents that went unseen, unnutured, and a million luxuries she deserved to have.

In the sorrow of losing Grandma this past week, I have had moments of great joy for her. I believe she is young and beautiful, that she is experiencing happiness she never fully received here on Earth. I believe she is now the lucky one because she will never feel physical or emotional pain again, and for this I am grateful.

Above all, I know she is aware of the outpouring of love for her and the reunion that is, and hopefully will continue, to take place between the people she loved so much, as a result of our love for her.