A week ago today, my grandmother – Grandma Peg – passed away peacefully. Losing a grandparent is always an odd thing in that the grandparent-grandchild relationship very commonly is that of unconditional love and fun; a relationship that is difficult to replicate with anyone else. Your parents offer unconditional love but there is a lot of discipline, chores and other such nonsense involved. Grandparents just spoil you. At least Grandma Peg did. Sure, she also was the moral compass of our family, a true matriarch with conservative values and framed pictures of the Bush clan in her house. But after her strong relationship with God, she valued her family the most despite any troubles we ran into.

She loved talking about our strong family history and she meticulously put together a hand-written family tree on the back of wallpaper – a tree that covered a wall in her basement. She had an engraved family tree made with birthstones, representing her growing family of five children and their spouses, 12 grandchildren and their spouses, and nearly 15 (I’ve lost count!) great-grandchildren.

I know people who give up on baby books but not Grandma Peg. With five children, a family business she helped support and an active church member, she meticulously created baby books for all of her children and “Grandma Remembers” books for all of her grandchildren. She kept shoe boxes filled with our photos, drawings, school reports, etc and included them in the scrapbooks.

Rob, Tessa and I traveled back to Wisconsin last week for her funeral; to pay respect to this wonderful woman. I had the opportunity to walk around her house by myself and in silence. So many memories flooded back. My grandparents had been written up in the local newspaper when they celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary. I was visiting them in Wisconsin when the photo shoot took place and walking by those framed photos made me smile with warm remembrance. Walking through her basement and past the pool table, I remembered the time my cousin Heidi got her elbow stuck in one of the table holes and Grandma Peg greased and rubbed her arm out with loving care. And sitting at her kitchen table, I remembered just talking. Grandma Peg was blessed with the ability to gab and having grown up during the depression and having had so many life experiences, she was a joy to listen to and I always walked away having learned something.

Grandma Peg never met Tessa, something that deeply disappoints me. However, before she died I was able to talk to her on the phone. I told her about Tessa and that I had sent pictures to her. She said she had seen them. I told my grandmother that I loved her, that I had a wonderful little family with Rob and Tessa and that I was happy. It meant a lot to me to share my family happiness with her since she valued it so much as well. She said she loved me too.

Right before Rob and I left for the airport, I woke up Tessa from a nap she was having on my grandmother’s bed. It felt like life had come full circle to see my little baby sleeping where my grandmother had not so long ago. And at that moment, it was as if the two did meet and Tessa was able to experience Grandma Peg’s love, presence and rich family history. It seems we now have an angel watching over us all.