To Remember...

RenFest has started. In fact, it's going to be over very soon, and we still haven't gone this year. I'm not a dress-up kind of girl at these things (as you can see by the polo shirt), but I usually wear my horns. I hate missing this event, and hope I can make it in the next few weeks, before it's gone until 2009.

I came across this picture (it's from 2006) and realized two things. One is that I kind-of like the curly hair business, and my hair is short enough to try and pull that off again, so I might give it a go.

The second is that I really miss my grandmother.

If you look closely you can see the dragonfly earrings I am wearing. Those belonged to my Mimi, and were a gift from my grandfather after she passed away in 2005. I wore them religiously until September of 2006, when I lost one at work.

It was during the installation of a new exhibit, and I'm sure it's lost forever, which at the time crushed me. The VP of Facilities (who is in charge of installing/demolishing exhibits) helped me search for it, and even looked again in January of 2007 when the exhibit was broken down and carted off.

I've harbored thoughts of taking the remaining earring and having it made into a pendant to wear around my neck, so I could have it again. But I've never actually made the effort to do so. I feel so disappointed in myself for losing it in the first place.

Though the realistic side of me recognizes that Mimi isn't a pair of earrings, or the black butterfly pin that was also hers (and that I wear often). Mimi was my only true grandmother. And my sister and brother and I were her only grandchildren.

I know I have avoided going back to her home, where my grandfather is, because I've been scared to spend a lot of time in the house without her there. It's been three years, but her home is the only home I've known my entire life. It's as close to a childhood home as I will ever have. I miss her so very much, because she loved me no matter what I did or how I failed. She and Granddaddy never stopped.

She battled ovarian cancer far longer than women half her age, because she was a stubborn woman. But she loved me, and she loved my children, and she would have loved my Husband so very, very much.

When I was a teenager, and my parents divorced - I will always remember that my grandmother didn't care which parent I lived with. If she wanted to talk to me, then she was dang well going to pick up the phone and call. When I lived with my dad in New Orleans, she and my Granddaddy did everything they could to make it easier on me.

And when I moved to Hattiesburg, to go to college - if I ever wanted to spend a weekend at their house, and just have dinner and family around me, I didn't even need to ask. Their door was always open.

I miss her. I miss her deep in my heart. I wish more than anything I could see her just one more time. With her healthy and happy and able to talk to me. Her's was the first funeral I ever went to for someone I knew, and she's the only person I've ever truly lost.

Take a moment and tell the people you love that you love them. The comfort I have is from knowing that she knew exactly how much she meant to me (and to her entire family) when she passed away.

~Lone Butterfly )i(