A Surprisingly Sane Blog

I’ve finally recovered from my vacation in Oklahoma.  The sleep deprivation I experienced the entire time I was there took a whopping three nights to get past, however, I’ve slept like a dead person since the day I returned home.  Thank God.

The trip was great in some ways, and not-so-great in others.

Seeing my grandparents and other extended family is always wonderful.  Staying in their beautiful house on the most gorgeous ranch imaginable is bliss.  Watching Julie run barefoot on the grass(!) with her cousins without the fear of stepping on cholla cactus was so much fun.  Meeting up with an out-of-state friend for the first time was a blast.

But the trip was bittersweet in a way.

Seeing my grandparents age is heartbreaking.  The constant reminders of my cousin who killed himself last October were fresh and painful.  Being without James for a week made my throat ache in a sappy way that made me realize what a pussy I really am without him.  Dealing with inevitable parental-related drama always sucks.

My grandpa was very interested in our decision to move to Seattle and said something from his own experience that helped solidify that moving is indeed the right decision for us.  He said he wished he’d gone back to California when he could rather than heading back to rural Oklahoma.  Hindsight is 20/20, but the opportunity in northern Cali was just so much more vast than in a small farming town.  For us, Seattle appears to be our California, and Tucson is our small Oklahoma town.

Just some history on my mom’s family, in case you were wondering.  My grandpa lived in Oklahoma as a child before marrying as a teenager and moving to the coast for more opportunity.  The son of a half-Cherokee mother who died of tuberculosis much too young and a father I know nothing about.  A family with several children and no means to speak of.  Someone who went from dirt-poor with only a ninth-grade education to an incredibly hard-working, successful, well-off person.

I never met my mom’s mom.  She died of breast cancer when she was only 36.  And that would be the reason that I had to have my first ultrasound for breast lumps at the ripe old age of 26 when I was pregnant with April.

My grandpa married twice after the death of his wife.  He and my grandmother have been together since I was a young child.

For grandparents, they are remarkably young and in good health.  I can only hope they’re around for a good many more years so that my children have the opportunity to know them.  I told them they’d better make it to 100 years old.

They both laughed and said they sure hope they don’t make it that long.  They’d rather die while they still know who they are and can take care of themselves.  And then they laughed.

Current Mood: Sad

This entry was posted on Monday, June 22nd, 2009 at 10:13 am and is filed under Photos, Sad Things. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.