This weekend we finally put my grandmother's ashes to the Missouri River, where she and my grandfather camped, fished, boated, and just enjoyed about 15+ years of their marriage. As a kid, I often went camping with them. I can still remember my cousins and I wondering all over the camp site- we'd find ourselves lost in the forested areas and then find new fields to triumph. We would swim as hard and as long as we could out into the river- and I remember thinking that the shore looked so close- how could we not reach it! I still remember getting caught up in the current one summer and getting pulled under water. My cousin Jason is accreditted for saving my life with a long branch, although my aunt argues it was actually her. (Let me tell you- I don't care how old you are, when you are near death, you remember the people around you.)
Boating down the river though on Sunday made me realize how far I'd come from any of those memories. Nothing looked familar to me. My father would point out areas, but I just could not place them. I think it had more to do that #1 I was looking at a shore line that was 10+ years more developed than I had ever remebered and #2 I was looking at these areas from the river, not from the shore line where the majority of my memories stem from- but still I was sad that I did not remember these areas like the others on the boat had.
Grandma passed away back in December of complications of a lifetime of cancers, heart issues and other ailments, but she was a speacial women- full of love and damn straight determination that her children, and her children's children would have a shot in life. My father and her would fight like I hope nobody would ever hear anyone fight, but he loved her and even on her deathbed, he stopped at nothing to give her the shot in life she tried to give him. She always gave me and my brother the benefit of the doubt and stood up for us when everyone else was putting us down. She loved us all and we will, and do, miss her very much.
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