Grandma Lucy

When I was little I spent summers in Puerto Rico with my sweet Grandma Lucy, my mothers mother. She is a beautiful, strong, independent woman and as a little girl I learned so much from her about how women can do anything. She had a large plot of land and I can remember traveling with her up into the hillsides of Puerto Rico and out to the "finca" where she had every fruit tree and plant you can imagine. I marveled as she changed from her dress into work clothes and machete in hand she would go about clearing the land, cutting down fruit from the trees, and breaking open coconuts for a quick snack at lunch time. My grandma is one of my biggest heroes. Grandma now lives in Florida but I will never forget those days in Puerto Rico.

Losing my mother to cancer was and still is the most painful thing I've had to go through in my life. I can't begin to describe the feelings I had as I was given the news in February of this year that my amazing grandmother was also facing cancer and that there was no treatment for it. I wanted to run all the way to Florida and just be with her. However, I'm a mom of 6 and my duties lie first and foremost with them. We decided to go in the summertime and hope that grandma was still feeling up to visitors.

We drove out to Florida at the end of May a couple of days before school officially got out. The drive down was CRAZZZY as the midwest and south was being POUNDED with Tornado weather and we had to stop more than once for sirens, torrential rain and heavy wind. It was the craziest drive we have ever been on (and believe me we drove through --got stuck in--major blizzards from Utah to Kansas back in December!) But when we finally made it there it was like coming home and Grandma was the same strong, loving woman she has always been. She took the kids on a long walk, showed them the chickens, cooked every single meal FROM SCRATCH, and one night she even pulled out the machete to hack a cooking pumpkin up for dinner!!! LOL! My kids were AMAZED by that one.









I'm so grateful to have a grandmother that loves so deeply, that is a strong independent woman, that taught me how to pray, that is one of the most Christ-like people I have ever met, that taught me so much about life through her example. I'm the luckiest girl in the world. I must admit that when the time came to leave I wasn't ready...I cried like a big baby. I wanted to stay longer and make the stay last all summer and make the summer last a lifetime. I'm so grateful that my children were able to spend that time with their great-grandmother and learn from her as I did when I spent summers with her.