This is my Grandma Rafferty. Here we are with my kids and my mom this past summer. The last time I saw her - the last time I will ever see her.
Grandma Rafferty always baked the best treats - her peanut butter fudge was to die for.
Grandma Rafferty always had sweet cereals in her pantry - breakfast was delicious at her house.
Grandma Rafferty always was crafty, she could sew anything - including that ridiculous Wilma Flintstone costume I wore as a senior in high school.
Grandma Rafferty always gave me $10 for Christmas, some years I also received a knitted hanger - I still use those hangers for sweaters that hang.
Grandma Rafferty had seven children, when she was asked how she wasn't crazy she replied "of course I am crazy" - I love that line, I use that line often.
Grandma Rafferty died early this morning. I am flying to New York tomorrow to attend her funeral. The odd thing about living so far away is that people don't really exist in your life, in your day to day routine, they are not there. I can't remember the last time Grandma Rafferty was in my day to day routine, but it's been a while. A very long while. As a result, I won't really know she's not here anymore until I don't visit her next summer. I will realize she is not on my list of people to see and it will hit me - bam, right in the middle of summer.
Right now I am trying to accommodate the fact that I no longer have grandparents. I think how distant my great-grandparents were to me - my last one died when I was two or three, I had her name but she seemed so ancestor-like. I realize that my children will think about Great-Grandma Rafferty (that Elizabeth always called Grandma Rhapsody, which I think she liked) will just think of her as an ancestor. She'll show up on their family tree and they'll say, oh yeah, Nana's Mother. But they will have no idea that her peanut butter fudge was unbelievable and that she could sew costumes that were amazing.
I have to remember her story so that I can tell her story.
