The last day of our annual getaway up North, literally as we were loading the car to leave, my dad got a call from my Grandma. She had been having some frequent stomach aches and some indigestion. She went in and they ended up doing a scan and found cancer. It was completely unexpected and came out of nowhere. My Grandma Kearns was so "with it" and sharp as a tack and had been so healthy. Two years ago, she had a knee replacement- in her 80's- and the following year she had the other knee replaced. Up to that point, the only other time she had been hospitalized was for the birth of her three kids. So it was unbelievable to us that she received this diagnosis. In the weeks that followed we learned that not only did she have stomach cancer, but also liver and pancreatic, which meant it was stage 4 and there was little they would be able to do. Two months later she was gone.
We have always tried to make an effort to visit when we were in town visiting my parents as we did with my other grandparents, but when you know the time is limited, we just wanted to see them as much as possible. She got a kick out of seeing my girls- Rylie sang songs for her and colored pictures and Reagan made silly faces. We went to La Crosse the weekend after we returned from up North. I didn't think there would be a lot of time and I wanted to make sure the kids saw her while she still looked like her normal self- I just wanted them to picture her and remember her the say they always had. I also wanted to get some pictures. It made me question why I hadn't taken pictures all along? I had taken a few here an there, but I certainly knew that time with grandparents and great grandparents was precious, so I'm not sure why I hadn't been taking more pictures all along. We went back a few weeks later over Labor Day weekend and the weekend after and that was the last time we would see her.
When she went into the hospital, she seemed to be okay yet and was understanding and talking to my dad, but the next day she was fairly unresponsive and it was a matter of a day or two. I was at home with the girls when I got the call. And thank goodness for those two- Rylie gave me a hug and said "you'll be okay sweetie". When I told her Great Grandma was now in heaven, she asked if she took her car or flew there. It's responses like that, that help you laugh through the tears.
The pictures below are from Labor Day weekend. Rylie actually took the picture of my Grandma below, with my phone. It's one of my favorites of her- she still looks pretty much like herself (slightly yellowish) and is laughing at my girls. I was able to get a video as well of both girls giving her a hug and saying goodbye- it's precious.
I have so many memories from my Grandma's house along with my cousins. And there are many things I'll remember about her too. To this day, she is the strongest and most independent person I had ever met. My grandpa died when they were in their mid-50's and she had been on her own ever since. She was a 3rd shift ER nurse, so she saw all kinds of "fun" stuff. She had a dog, Patches, who got sick so she took him in on her own and he was put to sleep. I had never seen her, in my entire life, shed a single tear for any reason.
One of my favorite stories was 6 years ago when Dan and I had bought our house- she offered her old push lawn mower to us because she was upgrading to a self-propelled push lawn mower. At 80 she was still push mowing her lawn. She told us she had just changed the spark plugs but we would need to get the blade sharpened. She could do anything she tried and what was funny was that I said something to her about it once and she said that her Dad could do everything, but then she married Charlie and he wasn't handy at all, so I guess she didn't have a choice. She could do anything from pluming and electrical, to make up her own concoction for removing stains, to building porcelain dolls, refinishing old trunks, building doll houses, to painting landscapes, painting houses for her Christmas village and baking. For years she baked platters of Christmas cookies for tons of people. She made our birthday cakes for as far back as I can remember. And her spread of desserts on Christmas day was amazing- she made the best cream puffs ever.
She loved to sew- she made several Christmas and Easter dresses for all the girl cousins, and loved gardening. Her yard was amazing- with tons of flowers and little fountains, stepping stones, and shepherds hooks everywhere. She loved watching birds and had several bird feeders in her back yard. Some of my favorite memories with my cousins there are climbing trees or swinging on the pole in the basement. She had a support pole in the far basement of her house and all of us would find a spot for our hands and swing around trying to knock each other off. I'm not sure how more of us didn't end up hurt. It always came down to my cousin Dylan and his sister Ashley. We occasionally all slept over there- usually on a Christmas night- she kept 8 kids there by herself, which is just crazy. I LOVED Christmas days at her house too- as a child and as an adult. We always had so much fun- from just spending time together to raiding the bar to check out all the old booze, which was then passed in a circle around the room for everyone to take a pull- including Grandma. I will miss that house and all of the holidays spent there. I will miss seeing all of my cousins all together at least once a year. I will miss her. I'm happy that my girls got to know her, but sad that don't have any great grandparents left. I'm very lucky to have had 3 of them as long as I did and am so thankful for all of the memories. I look forward to sharing them with my kids as they grow older and hope that they'll remember some of them too.
Our wedding day - Sept. 6, 2008
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| Both sides of my family- so blessed that all three of my grandparents were at my wedding |
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| Rylie meeting Great Grandma- July 2009 |
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| Rylie's Baptism- Sept. 2009 |
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| Rylie's 1st Birthday- July 2010 |
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| Reagan meeting Great Grandma- June 2012 |
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| Thanksgiving 2012 |
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| Rylie's 4th Birthday- July 2013 |
