In Memory of Grandma

This post is mostly for me. It has been a year since my Grandma passed away. Grandma Johnson was the only grandma I had growing up. I always looked forward to visiting her in Salt Lake where she lived all my life. She lived in a condo where there was a swimming pool and we looked forward to summers and swimming all we could while we were there. Grandma would rotate visiting her 4 children at Christmas time and we sure loved having her around and telling her about our lives.
She had a small closet in her condo that she called "The Little People's Closet" where she had a toy trunk full of toys for the grandkids to play with when they visited. I remember her library and she had books to read for all ages. She had all sorts of games to play as well. On some occasions, she would host a "Burn the House Down" party where the kids gathered around with pads of paper, pencils and dice-the objective was to roll the appropriate #s to build your house and then roll for kids. The first person to get their house built and get all their kids won (if you rolled 3 of a kind, it burned your house down and you had to start over). She always had fun little prizes for the winners.
The meanest thing she ever did to me was make me eat cooked cauliflower before I could leave the dinner table. When I went to college I had the opportunity to live with her. That is a time I will always treasure. Grandma went from the lady who gave us stuff, to my friend. She had eye drops she had to put in her eyes every night and she would lie at the end of her bed to "drop her eyes". While the eye drops worked, I would lie on the floor and we would have long visits about life.
I remember her telling me that she didn't feel much older than I was, but when she looked in the mirror, her wrinkles told her otherwise. Because I helped out around the house and cooked meals, she began calling me "The Slave Labor". It was all in fun, and her sister who lived next door would come over regularly for dinner to take advantage of the Slave Labor. Dinners with Grandma and Aunt Wilma were hilarious as they bickered back and forth. I began to see me and my sisters at that age and realized that just because we get older, doesn't mean we grow up.
Grandma would give me the daily mail report when I would get home from work, "There's not any mail from South America today." I think she looked forward to Keith's letters as much as I did. She commented regularly on my dates, referring to one of them as "Garden Variety", meaning he wasn't good enough.
After my little Joe was born (his middle name is Grandma's maiden name), she would always ask what color his eyes were. They hadn't decided yet and were still changing until one day I told Grandma they were green. She told me "I think they will be brown. They are brown." That week Joe's eyes turned brown and never changed again! She loved brown eyes because that was one of her favorite things about her husband, his brown eyes. I had the opportunity to visit her weekly when she was moved to the care center down the road a few months prior to her passing. I still enjoyed the visits with her and we again had some good talks about life.
I talked with her about Family History one day (as she spent much of her life working on genealogy) and mentioned I was working on mine once and wondered what she would do. She promptly responded "Pray!" She knew what was important and seemed to convey that to her grandchildren.
I could say much more about her, but will end at this. I miss her often, but am not sad she is gone. She waited a long time to be reunited with her loved ones and no longer is hindered by her failing body. She was a influence for good in my life, and my friend.