I have a great family. Both sides. I grew up in the same speck on the map town with my dad's side; Grandma and Grandpa down the road, cousins invading each others homes torturing the younger more defenseless ones(me for example). I love all my cousins and yes, I have a lot of them!
I want to tell you about one that is very important to me right now. My Amy. I like to call her that and started it the summer before I met Brian(and I dropped off the face of the earth for a while). To sum it up she is special to me. Why? Well for one thing she let me sit on the bus with her and look through the pictures in her wallet. I was in 1st or 2nd grade and she was in jr. high or high school I think(to me she was all grown up and cool beyond description). Our time together was hit and miss while I was growing up. I remember her living with Grandma and Grandpa which was awsome because then I could go and look at all her grown up doodads hanging on the wall. She had this one board that was covered in quotes and again I knew she was the coolest most grown up person on the planet. Plus, she had gorgeous poofy hair that was a dream. Then she moved to Maine to become a nanny and her coolness level skyrocketed. We weren't pen pals or anything but Grandma would keep me up to date and I think we wrote one or two letters during those years she lived away. Then the time came when I would come home for the summers between semesters at BYU. This was when she and I really grew close because we are both opinionated loud mouths who truly get a kick out of ourselves. Put us together and we're an unstoppable force of self hilarity.
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I love this picture for 2 main reasons.
#1. Amy and I look like such cheeseball goobers
#2. Grumpy is clearly trying to get away and we are
holding him hostage!! |
Probably our favorite thing to do together(when we weren't solving world crisis issues) was tease Grandpa. And when he wasn't around we loved to talk about teasing Grandpa, the things he said, songs he sang, and his one-of-a-kind insults that you always knew were his way of saying he loves ya. Well, at this time we united in calling him "Grumpy." Don't start calling us disrespectful either because this is the man who on many occasions sang us the Mrs. 5 x 5 song. Never heard of it? Well here's how it goes:
Mrs. five by five.
She's five feet tall and she's five feet wide.
She don't measure no more from head to toe,
As she does from side to side.
Obviously he's the only person who could get away with this so don't try, unless getting your eyes clawed out sounds fun to you. ;) We often told each other that we were Grandpa's favorites. Not necessarily favorite grandaughter or grandchild, just his Favorites in general life. We were sure, while he often asked us to pipe down, that he was immensely proud of our wit and boisterous nature. Whether that is true or not we joked(and continue to joke) about it and the magic of believing it has made it true in our own minds.
When I got the phone call about Grandpa being in the hospital Amy was one of the first people I thought of because my relationship with her has always been closely tied to our dear Grumpy. She was there in Billings when I got there. She took the second trip to the hospital with me and the entire 2 hour drive there and back was like a conversation marathon, like 2 hens cackling as Grumpy would have called us. When he passed away she was the first person I talked to aside from my immediate family and I knew she understood EXACTLY how I was feeling because she was feeling it too. She knew the family needed each other and took work off and just came. She checked on Grandma and brought cake from a coworker and watched my kids while I worked frantically on things for the funeral. She came the next day too. And the next. She helped me with the slide show and cried with me and talked with me. The whole family was grieving but it was especially comforting for me to have Amy there that whole week because Grandpa was her Grumpy too.
Some people have more than their share of trials in life and in the very least Amy has had beyond anyone's fair share of health trials. She is right now in fact in a physical battle for her life though most people would never guess it. She's still the one telling the stories to my little brothers to make them laugh hysterically. Still the one checking on Grandma and praying daily for her to find peace and comfort. Still being the dutiful grandaughter to Joyce who can always count on her. Still my Amy. I wrote this because writing is theraputic. If you've never tried it you should. And you should always write for yourself if you want it to do any real healing. I also wrote this not only to show my love but to honor a person I've looked up to since I was a little girl and to tell her I've got her back.
So to Amy: Game is on and I'm with you as we battle for your health and happiness!
