Remembering Gramaxine...

Last night as I was about to lay down to sleep I heard a police siren for just a few seconds in the background and it brought back a flood of memories for me.

Growing up in the farmlands of Southern Alberta with only the sound of the cows, sheep, birds, horses and other odd animals to lull me to sleep or wake me up, I always craved and thought it very exciting to go to my Grandparents house in Raymond and sleep over there where I could hear other noises such as police sirens for a few seconds or cars driving by or even seeing the shadows cast upon the walls from the headlights of a car driving by. It was a cool whole new world and it filled me with a sense of excitement.

(Me, Grandma and Baby Candace)

My Grandma Maxine and Grandpa Lenard were the coolest. They would have us 4 kids over on a regular basis, and not all at once either! I said they were cool, not stupid! Sometimes I would go by myself. Sometimes I would go with my sis. Other times it would be my older brother and I. It just depended on what kind of mood everybody was in. Whether it was my brother or my sis, we used to go on these "Great Adventures" We would hop on bikes with banana seats and those handle bars that go up..you know the ones? Then we would ride all over Raymond exploring new places and enjoy our freedom without the accompanyment of any adults. Then when we got back we could have pretty much anything we wanted. Ice cream, hard tack candies, nigger babies, homemade pies and sometimes homemade rootbeer if it was the right time of year. Whatever she had was there for us. I especially liked her selection of ice cream. She rarely ever had plain old vanilla and chocolate like my mom did. It was always strawberry ripple, butterscotch ripple, chocolate ripple, neopolitan, tiger, strawberry...yah, the selection was great. We could watch t.v. as much or as little as we liked, which was definetly a treat for us because at our house watching t.v. was definetly a special treat. This was where I got to watch The Price is Right probably for the first time. There was usually something fun to do at Grandma's. Take Fraggle Rock for instance...They had a real life fraggle rock below their house. It was so cool. I'm sure if I were to take a look at it now I wouldn't think it was anything exciting, but to a child, it was fantastic! Tunnels with dirt walls and floor...We weren't allowed down there too much though cuz gramps was always afraid something might happen to us down in fraggle rock without him! He just wanted to putter around in the shed outside and pretend like he was fixing the world! ha ha
Grandma with Candace and Baby Blaze in the hospital after she was too fragile to be on her own.

Waking up to the smell of coffee was such a comfort those days. To this day, I love the smell of coffee and I think that's why! Gramaxine would make us anything we wanted for brekky. Toast, eggs, hot chocolate, cold cereal. Then she'd put her trust in us to go get the mail from the post office and often give us money for a treat at the Raymond Pharmacy (usually gum as my mum wouldn't let us chew gum! We were so sneaky!) and then later on maybe we'd go to the Merc and do some shopping with her. In the winter time it was always fun to race to the heaters and almost get burned by the hot air coming out of them...Only at Gramaxine's and Grampa Lenard's house...

Us with my Dad in the hospital. This would have been shortly before she died.

It was so cool how just that few seconds of police siren brought back a flood of memories for me and for the first time in the 9 years since she died, I cried cuz I missed her and I had this huge aching desire to be a child again and be in her house and feel of her love for me. She always made me feel special and would give me almost anything I wanted which was quite uncommon for me as it seemed my own mother used to say 'No' more often than not! Anyways, I hope I didn't bore you all to tears with my memories. I really did this for my family because I know when they read it they will remember too and memories of our loved ones is such a precious gift. There are so many more memories but...

Grandma with Baby Candace