Friday, April 22, 2016

Finding a way out

Hello!

I mean, really, Hello! It's been awhile and I am ashamed of myself.

Not long after I wrote my last blog post in January, my grandmother (my last living grandparent who I had just gotten a DNA test on), went through a series of bad health problems, which ultimately caused her death on March 17th, at 8:44 am.

It was and has been one of the hardest deaths I've gone through. Coping through it has had it's moments of gratefulness, sadness, regrets, what if's, and many sleepless nights.

However, through it all, I have maintained that I will keep my Grandma's spirit alive by continuing to document her life (and her ancestors) through my blogging, research and archiving of her family documents.

Doing this has been one of the only ways I have been able to get through this.

I have been going to my Grandma's house, cleaning through many items of hers to search for missing photos, negatives or just important papers. It can be somewhat addicting to just keep going through things because she had SO much to go through (we've barely scratched the surface!). In the meantime, I have been working on a slideshow movie to celebrate not only her life, but also my grandfather's life (who died in 2014).

My grandma was like a second mother to me. I saw her frequently iver the last 5-6 years. I recorded many of her stories on my phone and with my camera. I loved these moments with her because for one of the first times in her life, she was just herself, relaxed and enjoying our time together.

Right now and for always, those are the times I miss the most. Instead of "Tuesdays with Morrie" - mine was "Saturdays with Annette." The loss is very painful, but in hindsight, it was also inevitable.

I will post her Ancestry.com DNA results in the coming weeks, as they did come in and it was fairly interesting to see what came up, but there is one thing that's for certain - I am definitely her granddaughter :)

So, I promise, I will return, but my posts just may be farther in between.

Thanks for still reading, if anyone really is!