I don’t mind saying that I had two amazingly wonderful grandmothers!  My Grandma Howard (Doris Jean Howard) was a spirited, yet always proper, country girl!  She lived in Missouri her whole life and was raised by her loving grandparents after suffering abuse as a young girl from her step-father.  She married my grandpa at the age of 17 because he was going off to war.  My grandparents were the happiest couple I have ever known.  They were poor, but made such a happy life for themselves.  They were fun and wonderful parents, and grandparents, and were loved by everyone in their little community.  She was a seamstress her whole life, working from home, while my grandpa had his own garage across the street from where they lived, where he fixed cars.

My grandparents loved being together.  They talked forever on their front porch, or over coffee in the morning, before my grandma scuttled him out the door for work, where she came and visited him frequently.  They fished, played cards, went on road trips, entered photography contests together, and she always kept a journal.  I came across this today and wanted to share it.  I have always loved this particular journal entry of hers.  At the age of 75 she wrote it, and we read it at her funeral four years later:

March 2002

I haven’t written for a long time.  I have now lived three quarters of a century.  That doesn’t make me so very old but I realize there are things I would have liked to do that are now closed to me.

I would have liked to have learned to swim and ride a bike and skate.  I would have liked to have finished high school and gone to college.  I wanted to be a writer or a singer or a teacher or even at one time a nurse.  I would have liked to go to New York or WashingtonD.C. and especially to Rome or Vienna or Jerusalem.  All of these things and more I would have liked to have done – but I wouldn’t trade the things I have done.

I have lain in the tall thick grass and watched the clouds make funny shapes as they floated across the sky.  I have ridden my pony wild and free through the fields and meadows and along the country lanes of my childhood.  I have gone to pick wild flowers in the woods with the greatest grandpa of all.

I have gone fishing, hunting and mushrooming with a wonderful man.  I’ve had a man that I have loved and who has loved me with all his heart for nearly 60 years.  I have held two beautiful babies in my arms and watched them grow.  I’ve gone to ball games, to concerts, to 4H shows and school programs and I’ve held 2nd and 3rd generations of babies.

I’ve helped make a loving and happy home for some and a safe haven for others.

If I should die – my plans as for now are to live forever – but you know how human plans are – as I was saying if I should die sometime in the near or far future I shall do so with few regrets.  Although I do wish I had learned to swim.  I’ll leave my little part of the world a little nicer and maybe my descendents will make it a little better.  Maybe little Luke (her grandson) will discover a cure for cancer or the common cold.