4 KIDS NO DOG and a BABY

4 KIDS NO DOG and a BABY

February 12, 2008

Grandma Russell

My Grandma passed away 12 years ago, around this time, I believe it was the 7th but not totally sure because I was in Brazil at the time serving my mission. But anyway that is beside the point.

I have been thinking a lot about her. I didn't know her very well. I have never understood that either. We rarely went to visit her, and I recall only once she coming to visit us when I was younger. On mother's day my dad would call her and then we had to talk to her, and I hate to say we had to talk to her, but I never knew what to say to her.

Then when I was in 8th or 9th grade, after she sent me my birthday card, I sent her a thank you note. She was really good about remembering birthday's. Actually when my parents went to clean up her house, they found a birthday card out that she had written for me but didn't have a chance to mail. So after I got this birthday card when I was 14 I decided to write her back.

She became my best pen pal. We wrote back and forth to each other until she passed away. I treasured her letters, and looked forward to getting them from her. I just wish I knew where they were....unfortunately I believe they are thrown away. Something she would be sad about because she was so good about keeping letters and scrapbooks.

I bet she would be my number one blog reader too!

I don't have many regrets in life, because I believe each experience has made me who I am. But I regret not knowing my Grandma even better. I really don't know much about her, and it really has me sad right now. I guess it's time to call my dad and talk to him about her.

Life lesson here?

Spend less time watching TV and more time Talking....
Call your parents and grandparents often, find out about them
Keep a journal
Nobody is perfect
Everybody needs to be loved
There are only two kinds of people in this world:
Those you Love and those you Don't Know
If you are having a hard time loving someone its probably because you just don't know them!

6 comments:

Yvonne said...

Great message for me--thank you. She sounds like a wonderful person. Such lovely pictures.

Ashley said...

I feel terrible sometimes when I think of my G-ma sitting at home alone. I can"t go visit her because she lives to far away, but I can snd her cards to let her know I am thinking of her. At this point she doesn't have many years left on earth and I know I need to get know all things about her I can.

katharine said...

sounds like you did have a good relationship with her, and though its sad you don't have the letters, you do have more grandma memories because of them than many of us ever had.
my grandma is kind of a hermit (maybe i inherited some of that?). she will reply if i write, but usually the shortest answer possible (so hard to get to know her), my other one died when i was about 7.

Sheri said...

That is a great reminder... my grandma just found a box of her journals!! What a treasure! I can't wait to get better so I can go visit and read through them with her!!

Unknown said...

That's really thoughtful of you to do that for Grandma Russell. She was a good pen pal. I wrote her a lot at BYU Hawaii. She was very consistent about writing back. Miss her lot!

Unknown said...

awh corrine,
i really really like this post. awh! you were blessed to get to have her as your penpal.

when i was a kid, youth, and young adult, my grammy was my penpal. when i was a kid, it was sooo awesome to have these cards arrive with stickers all over them and her words. it was like some angel out there was taking care of me and giving me attention when i felt so lonely growing up. she taught me how to "good mail" my favorite people. she was a perfect example to me of "good mailing" your people. to this day, i do what she did. i put happy stickers all over my "good mail" to my people. and i share stickers with all my little ones in primary. i eat this up. i love this. we were both blessed to have the influence of our grammy penpals.

great day girl,
kathleen :)

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