what a week

last thursday my grandmother passed away. the hubby and i were on the next flight to nj and just got back last night. it was kind of an overwhelming time. it kind of still is.
i helped my brother write something to say at her funeral because i don't speak in front of people. it was difficult, not only emotionally, but to accurately put into words of only a page or so the life of this wonderful woman who lived just one day shy of 91 years.
the night before her funeral my family gathered and looked at the bar and bat mitzvah videos to see clips of her. we also looked through the old photo albums she and my grandfather had kept so meticulously and so very very clearly labeled. we even got to see pictures of my grandmother when she was just 6 weeks old. the style then was to take a picture of the baby without clothes, laying on a bearskin rug. my grandfather had the identical posed photo of himself, too. there were pictures detailing her life at every age. in one picture of her at age 15, everyone says it could easily have been a picture of me i resemble her so. we saw pictures upon pictures of my grandmother, taken by grandpa, by herself sometimes posing, sometimes candid. sometimes she was even flirting with him behind the camera. those were my favorite shots of her. they truly showed how vivacious she was as a young woman. she was a beautiful and elegant woman and lived a long and up until the last few years, very full life. i've missed her the last few years, and will continue to, but i know she is at peace now. i hope that everyone who knew her learned from her and will carry her life on through the way they choose to live.