Jolene's Funeral

At the end of January, we received the really shocking news of Jolene dying. Jolene is my mom's cousin. Growing up it went my parents' house, my grandparents' house, and Jolene's house all in a row. She was always invited to holidays and big family dinners. Just a few weeks before her death, she walked over to my parents house and was so winded after climbing the stairs up to the kitchen, she had to catch her breath for a few minutes. Little did I know there was probably something really wrong.

I felt really sad at the news of her death. She had never married or had children, so we were kind of all of the family she had. I regret not taking more time to talk and visit with her because she didn't have very much family. At her funeral there were a couple of her friends that that shared stories of their friendship. It was really touching.

When we visited Grandpa, they had him spotlighted in his wing of the VA home. It was fun to read his little autobiography and see the pictures. 

Jolene wasn't a close enough relation that John got time off work to go to the funeral, so I just flew up with Holland to attend. It was a blessing to see my family again. Especially because I was able to visit Grandpa while he was alert. He really enjoyed playing with Holland, and it was a real tender mercy to me to hear him play with her and sing to her. Especially because when we visited over Christmas he was really too tired to wake up and chat with us.

Grandma enjoyed playing the baby too! Grandpa's bed had a sensor on it that kept setting off an alarm because he rested his arm on the bed in the wrong spot.

It was nice to see my mom too. I flew up with my dad, and we chatted on the plane. We also went to a nice dinner at Kayla's house.

I missed my little family though and was glad to get back to the warm weather!

I got sent this picture. Apparently, Miriam had fun building a fort while I was gone.