The next part of June

The morning of Michael's mom's funeral, I got a text from my dad that my Grandma Alley had just passed away. This one was not unexpected - I'd even gone out to Utah for spring break to see her one last time before her health declined too much - but the timing was crazy. Not only was I in Tennessee at my mother-in-law's funeral, but my parents were on vacation in Hawaii with my mom's family. Thankfully, they were able to schedule the funeral to give everyone enough time to get out to Utah.

When I told people that I'd been out of town at my grandmother's funeral, the response over and over again was amazement that I still had living grandparents. My grandma lived a long and amazing life, and although I cried buckets at her funeral because the eulogies were beautiful and I will miss her, it wasn't the same kind of sorrow as the other funerals I've been to this year. Instead, the days I spent in Utah were a sweet time reminiscing with family that I don't get to see very often.


One hard part of the trip was saying goodbye to my Grandma and Grandpa Alley's house. My Aunt Diana has been living with Grandma for the past several years, but with Grandma gone, Diana decided to move closer to her daughter.

My grandparents had lived in that house my whole life. I think even my dad's whole life. It was a tiny house with too few bathrooms for the number of people we would cram into it and the scariest basement stairs. I have so many wonderful memories of running around the gorgeous yard, playing games at the dining room table, and watching BBC movies with my grandparents in their back bedroom. When I was very little, both sets of my grandparents lived on the same block, and it was a child's dream to be able to play at one house and then walk around the corner to the other house when I got bored. I loved to play with the shells and other trinkets my grandma kept on her blue shelf, watch her wind up her music boxes, and read book after book from all over the house.

When I was fourteen, my parents sent me to Utah by myself to spend time with my relatives for a few weeks. I remember one day sitting at the kitchen table with just my Grandma and Grandpa, eating homemade bread and home-canned pears. Grandma made cheerful small talk in that beautiful happy way of hers while my grandpa and I listened quietly, and Grandma laughed, pointing out how much alike we were. I have always been a quiet person in a world where quiet is often not valued, and so I sometimes feel weird and out of place. But sitting there that day with my Grandma and Grandpa Alley, I felt like I knew where I belonged. My grandparents made me feel so special.