I’ve never seen Grandma so overjoyed to see anybody.
Part of this is that she’s always been, to my memory, just a little bit emotionally reserved. She’s quiet. She’s a slightly silly flavor of dignified. She’s patient.
Tonight, when Randy and I stopped by, she was obviously very drained and very tired, and equally obviously overjoyed to see us.
I keep using that word “overjoyed.” She was happier than she had the energy to express. And when I contrast that with my previous experiences with her, it’s pretty dramatic.
This trip came into being on what seemed at the time like a whim. “I can’t just drop everything and fly to DC, can I?” was my first thought. By the time it was all said and done, THREE of us were dropping everything to come out. And according to my Aunt, when Grandma heard about that yesterday, she perked WAAAAY up. Kay was worried Sunday that Grandma had resigned herself to the slide into the next life, had given up on hanging around here anymore. Well, after hearing that her boys were on the way, she found a little more purpose.
She told me a couple of times that she wished my Mom could have been here to see us. “She’d be so proud.” I told her “Mom knows we’re well. She’s watching over us. I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow.” I’ve told that story to a lot of people, but I don’t know that my Grandmother has ever heard it.
It’s sacred stuff. I don’t know that it’ll end up in a public journal entry.
Grandma wanted to be able to see the grandkids, and I remembered that on the plane as I’d been doing some Schlock image prep I’d found a bunch of photos. I THOUGHT I’d purged all the summer vacation shots from my laptop weeks ago, but apparently I didn’t. And it’s a good thing to. I told Grandma I had lots and lots — HUNDREDS of pictures we could look at on the computer, and I’d bring them in for her tomorrow. I just wish I had a way to print ALL of them out on nice paper for her to page through after my laptop and I go back home.
Serendipity. There are more examples of little things that have happened — little coincidences — that seem in league, in happy conspiracy, to ensure that Grandma gets a good dose of joy this week. Tomorrow we’ll see how much of that we can deliver.
–Howard
I just wish I had a way to print ALL of them out on nice paper for her to page through after my laptop and I go back home.
Kodak photo kiosk. I’m not sure if it’ll take an ethernet connection but it will take cd, floppy, and most types of memory cards. I think it’s like $8/sheet and you can get 9 wallets on a sheet so you can have 9 different images per sheet.
Every Wal-Mart I’ve been to has one of those Kodak Kiosks – though I suspect that many of those shots would have to be larger than wallet-size. They don’t have Ethernet ports, from what I’ve seen, though it shouldn’t be too tough to burn them all to CD (which I’d do anyways).
If you have a floppy drive, a CD burner, anything of that nature, copy the photos to a disk and take it in to a Walgreens. The vast majority of them now print from digital media, and you’ll be able to print them up for her.
Kinkos (or is it FedEx/Kinkos now?). http://www.kinkos.com will get you there. There’s five within the city itself, all WiFi Hotspots (even though they also have Ethernet). Just transmit, print, and pay for the sheets. All of ’em should also have “Upload to PDF and print for pickup” capability (4 hour lead time, I belive).
I doubt I need to say this, but if printing pictures for Grandma to keep will work, the expense is worth it. Print them big so she can see them clearly. Print as many as you feel you need to.
Upload them to Wolf Camera (or Ritz Camera) and pick them up at the Wolf/Ritz store. Photo paper and everything at a very decent price.
http://www.ritzpix.com/login/index.asp .
You can upload the pictures straight from your laptop, and either pick them up same-day at a local store, or have them mailed to wherever. 4×6 prints are only $.29 or so each. 🙂
Hooray for Happy Conspiracies! 🙂
judas priest, those prices are out of control. You’d almost do better to buy your grandmother a laptop and just copy them all over 😉 Probably not quite the desired solution tho.
“I can’t just drop everything and fly to DC, can I?”
We can do all sorts of things when it’s truly important 🙂
And logistics are fun. I know you don’t like travel, but the logistics themselves are a blast! (my opinion, of course)
Here’s best wishes, prayers, positive energy, the works, for your grandma. What a great lady and blessing to have in your lives.