the letter

sometime before he died (as no date is listed), my grampa wrote me a letter. grama found it in one of his chests of drawers. here is how it began with the exceptions of his spelling and grammatical errors; i think he would have gotten a kick out of my perfection for grammar and punctuation, as nerdy as it is!

"elise,
i want you to be happy. you are a beautiful gal. you're intelligent, and you have a strong, religious base. i pray that you just enjoy your next step. remember to love your family. you are so special, my dear."

i think i will type up this part of the letter, frame it, and hang it by my bathroom window so i can read it every morning. i have read it over and over in the past couple hours since i received it, and each time i read it, i feel as if grampa is present in the room and hugging me. i can still detect a slight whiff of his scent on the letter and envelope. i am not entirely sure it really is there, yet i smell it.

though the letter was short, it was comforting; even solely seeing his penmanship without reading the letter made me smile. the majority of the letter was personal, but grampa did leave me one last piece of advice.

"anger is like a cancer, it can change a person's presence. it is better to accept what has happened. forgive and overlook; you will live a better life. remember to pray for strength." -grampa

i wish heaven had an address so i could write a response letter. i know he can hear my thoughts and read my letters--probably not this blog, though, because he had not quite figured out the computer!

better yet, i simply wish he was still here...

the letter in the envelope

the importance of a memory

"memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose" -kevin arnold

because our cable was acting funky this past week, i spent most of my "tv time" watching home videos of when i was younger rather than actual television. the films began moments after i was born. i heard my mother and father talking about how perfect i was, how i was going to be a girly-girl, and how much they already loved me. i watched my family hold me for the first time and welcome me into the family. then, my birth ended, and halloween began. at this time, i was four months old. i watched as my parents tried to involve me in pumpkin carving and as they dressed me up in this awful yet humerous pumpkin costume; i resembled the little boy from "a christmas story". 


this is what i resembled on halloween except i was a pumpkin. i'm not sure which is worse...

then, i watched my first christmas as my parents put a rather large santa hat on me. when the hat would fall down and cover my face, everybody would laugh. it was quite adorable, but i felt bad for my helpless, little self! that is also when this picture was taken. after helping my grampa open his presents (he was so patient with me!), i opened this walker. he helped me put it together, and held me up to it as i could not quite stand alone yet. precious.
 

i know i posted this picture already, but from watching my home videos, i actually saw when this picture was taken. it was incredibly weird to actually watch a picture being taken almost twenty years ago. crazy!! i love this picture.

after a while of watching myself as a baby, i watched as my two-year-old self opened countless christmas presents, threw temper tantrums, and smiled for the camera. i watched myself as my family traveled to the cabin, paul bunyan land, and to both of my grandparents' houses.

the saying goes something like, "you never appreciate what you have until it is gone." i did appreciate my family, and i still do. family is everything, the most important aspect of one's life. cherish every moment with family and friends because one never knows when it could be the last phone call, last hand shake, or last hug. but when that "last" does happen, taken time to mourn; it is okay to be sad, to cry, and to feel alone, but never forget the memories because those will live on forever.

my grampa lives on forever through my memories.