UP and away (in memory of my grandmother)
today is the anniversary of my maternal grandmother’s death on 7/21/2003. she was a loving mother of 8 children, 20+ grandchildren, and now a number of great-grandchildren i can’t even count. many of us grandchildren lived with my grandparents for various reasons for different lengths of time, and i lived with them in Harbor Springs, MI the spring-summer of 1991, when i was 14 and finishing the 9th grade. it was a rather tumultuous period of my family life, but Grandma was always there and having that safe place to go to was invaluable. i can’t write much more about her and the memories now because it’s too hard. we all miss her dearly.
when i saw the Pixar movie “UP” for the first time, i cried during the first montage of the old man and his wife buying their house, growing old together, and the feeling of loss when she died and he was left alone to ponder their lives and things they’d never done, including her lifelong dream to go to South America, and his fight to save his home – the place that held all of the memories. it reminded me so much of my grandparents, and of my grandfather, who still lives on there in that quiet little town. unfortunately, the farm house they built together and lived in for decades burned down shortly after i moved to California and my grandfather lives somehwhere else now. but in my mind, that is always where they lived, and i know that house was full of memories and dreams.
part of the reason i am going to South America (on August 2) is because of that film. i want to grow old with Jay and not have any regrets about what we dreamed of and didn’t do. i want to make sure that we don’t put aside things like travel until it’s too late. i know in the film the wife was perfectly happy with the life they ended up living, and i know the same is true for my grandmother, who loved her home and her children and her church and her small town. i don’t even know if she ever really wanted to travel, but i do, and if i have a fear of anything – it’s regret, and so this trip i’m taking is, in part, in honor of the memory of my grandmother, bless her soul.
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