What would life be, without MEMORIES?

I wouldn't completely down play a funeral, but when you lose someone special I just don't think the funeral is the saddest day. The incidental and what may seem like really insignificant times, become the saddest.  Memories that you didn't make on purpose and may have not listed as the most important times can make you cry, laugh, breakdown, increase your heart rate, smile, and stop you in your tracks.

I don't have a single picture of my Grandma at her sewing machine.  However, most of my memories are of her are at her sewing machine. I have a vivid sound track that sings in my head of her sewing machine. I guess I don't really need the picture, because thankfully the sight and sound is engraved into my brain.  If you ever visited my Grandma, she was always at her sewing machine.  Sometimes it would be almost lunch time and I would stop in and there she sat lost in a project, in her house coat.  She would laugh embarrassingly and say "oh geesh, I have to get changed and get lunch on".

The other day I sat at my sewing machine with a spool of her thread that was partially used.  My machine had just run out of thread and I grabbed it and my eyes immediately filled with tears.  I really didn't know why.  Then I sat there for awhile and thought of all the thread she had sewn into clothes, quilts, pillows and countless other projects for her family, friends, and community members.  I sat looking at the spool almost not wanting to use it, because I knew she was the last to touch it and the little thread that had been used, was used by her.  With tears in my eyes I put the spool on and threaded the machine.  I think Grandma would've been proud the thread was being used and that one of her granddaughters was sewing something.

Tonight while Jake was grilling steaks, he cooked some sweet corn we froze last summer and I scalded some peaches, peeled them and sliced them.  There it was again, a memory.  Last November when Grandma passed away, I wouldn't have even listed peaches as a memory.  Now that it is peach season there was a memory. Grandma sliced peaches, her slices were always perfect.  As I stood in the kitchen slicing peaches, my mind wondered to all of the meals she cooked for the hay balers in her kitchen and the amount of peaches she must have sliced in her lifetime.

I love happy memories!