Everything was better at Grandma Ann's

My Grandmother, Ann Malmgren, was laid to rest yesterday. It was truly a celebration of her life.  Tears were shed, and there was sadness, but the joy of stories, memories, and even home movies made it a wonderful time.

As with my Grandpa Leonard (Ann's husband, who passed away 21 years ago), I was asked to deliver the Words of Remembrance at the Mass of Christian Burial.  Basically, it's the non-clergy eulogy.  Knowing I had only a few minutes during which to speak, and that it had to be religious in nature (which I found a little awkward coming from me), I kept my stories short and simple.

I talked about hoping to awe and inspire everyone with my stories, but in preparation, was having trouble coming up with anything other than what everyone else would have said about her. So, as I explained, I started a brainstorming session, writing down a word or two about every memory I had.  Here was my list:

Worms

Well water

Peas

Orange Juice

Baseball

Linens

Ice cream

Popcorn

Tonight Show

Coffee Maker

Poached eggs

Basement smell

Jokes

Laugh

There were more I could have written down, but I realized I was getting nowhere.  It was a  mundane list for sure.

But then,after looking it over some more, I realized that's what made Grandma Ann so special. To have fond memories of her linked to each of these ordinary things could only mean that she truly was extraordinary. 

I had originally planned on describing why many of these held special meaning to me, but for time purposes, limited it to just a couple. As it turned out, less is truly more. Most people who knew Grandma Ann knew exactly what I meant by enough of these that they understood there must be something similarly wonderful to those they did not. It's like hearing a joke that you don't get, but know that you should get, and why, and thus find it funny.

I concluded my personal remembrances with the following, and am paraphrasing here, as it was mostly ad-libbed from the rehearsals that took place in my head:

Everything was better at Grandma Ann's. Some of it is understandable: her cooking, sewing, and gardening, for example. 

As for some of the others, it may not make much sense, and you might ask, "How could all those things, like mass-produced, store-bought ice cream, be better just because it was at Grandma Ann's?" 

Well, that's a question that pretty much answers itself.  Everything at Grandma Ann's was better...just because it was at Grandma Ann's.

Here is a link to her obituary: http://www.andersonfuneral.net/obituaries/Anna-Malmgren/