{"id":1568,"date":"2014-10-28T19:29:33","date_gmt":"2014-10-28T23:29:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/themaddlife.com\/?p=1568"},"modified":"2022-03-21T20:59:14","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T00:59:14","slug":"rest-in-peace-grandma-brenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themaddlife.com\/?p=1568","title":{"rendered":"Rest in Peace Grandma Brenda"},"content":{"rendered":"

How do you explain death to a toddler? In the course of one week Justin and I have had to explain the concept not once but twice to Avery and Emerson.\u00a0 Last Sunday they attended the funeral of their Great Grandpa, Papa Mac.\u00a0 The day before the funeral and after the funeral we gathered at my Grandma\u2019s house; there were a lot of people and a lot of typical Jewish food, we told the girls we were there to celebrate the life of Papa Mac.\u00a0 They understood that Papa Mac was not \u201cat his own party\u201d and he wasn\u2019t coming back.\u00a0 They knew he was in heaven, although I\u2019m not certain that they understand that heaven is any different than going to the store.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Five days after Papa Mac\u2019s funeral, Justin\u2019s mom Brenda passed away after a long and courageous battle with ALS. \u00a0And with that less than a week later, Justin and I again had to tell our girls that another one of their relatives, their Grandma Brenda had gone to heaven.\u00a0 While death is certainly all around us and a normal part of the life cycle, the truth is it isn\u2019t normal to have close family members pass away on a \u201cregular\u201d basis\u2026.and within 5 days made me feel like my girls were going to think, \u201cokay, who is going to heaven next week Mommy?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

We explained that Grandma Brenda was in heaven.\u00a0 They asked why, who drove her to heaven?\u00a0 They asked when she was coming back.\u00a0 We explained the concept of forever and that Grandma Brenda would be in heaven forever. \u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s odd but even at 3 years old, once we got down to Virginia Beach, neither Avery nor Emerson once asked where Grandma Brenda was.\u00a0 They knew she was in heaven and wouldn\u2019t be with us as we celebrated her life. \u00a0They knew that Grandma Brenda was now with Papa Mac in heaven forever\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

Justin eulogized Brenda and did a great job.\u00a0 Avery was his helper as she darted up the church stage to be center stage with Justin as soon as he made his way to the podium.\u00a0 She definitely helped lighten the mood and helped Justin get through his eulogy.\u00a0 As Justin said in his eulogy, when Brenda received the official ALS diagnosis in the summer of 2007, we all knew what that meant. The average life span from diagnosis of ALS is 3 \u2013 5 years.\u00a0 Brenda\u2019s symptoms begin probably close to 2 years prior to her official diagnosis.\u00a0 When Justin and I got engaged in spring of 2007 and were planning our wedding for the following year, we wondered if we were making a mistake by planning it for September 2008.\u00a0 Was a year and a half to far away?\u00a0 We decided to have an Engagement Party Labor Day Weekend of 2007 largely in part so that if Justin\u2019 mom was not around for our wedding she would have participated in our wedding celebration in some capacity.\u00a0 Well our wedding came and Brenda was there\u2026she was in her wheelchair and she couldn\u2019t eat any of our food, except maybe the mashed potatoes, but she was there and she was overjoyed to be there.\u00a0 Justin and I never expected she would be around by the time we had kids\u2026we waited\u00a0 a few years before we had kids and it never crossed our minds once to rush into having kids just so Brenda could be around to see them.\u00a0 So we were overjoyed when the time came to tell her about the news of her next TWO grandchildren\u2026.and we were overjoyed when she was not only still around to meet them, but that she was also able to make the trip (her last trip to Northern Virginia) to visit them in the hospital.\u00a0 And could you imagine our thrill (and hers) when Christmas 2012, when the girls were just over 1 years old, that we told her that Avery and Emerson were going to be big sisters.\u00a0 Since the girls were born, Brenda was not able to travel as she has been confined to a hospital bed in the house for pretty much the last three years with time in her wheelchair occasionally. \u00a0We were able to make the trip to Virginia Beach a few times a year and she loved seeing her granddaughters.\u00a0 And with modern technology FaceTime allowed her to see the girls on a regular basis\u2026.at least every other night since the girls were born. We were told by many of people at her funeral that Brenda loved to show off pictures of Avery, Emerson, and Harper on her IPAD.\u00a0 She would just scroll through the pictures and show everyone who came to visit.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

So right now, the fact that Brenda is gone seems surreal\u2026we knew this day would be coming and for years thought this day would be sometime that year and each year she would amaze us and be around for the next\u2026.we said several good byes and it got to the point where truly we didn\u2019t know when this day would actually come.\u00a0 It came\u2026.and it was peaceful in a way\u2026.it\u2019s still hard to believe that we won\u2019t be Face Timing with her tonight or tomorrow or ever again.\u00a0 But she is with is\u2026she is with us in spirit and she is running around smiling and talking and laughing and watching over us\u2026ALL those things that she hasn\u2019t been able to do in her body since her ALS diagnosis.\u00a0 I feel sad that the girls will grow up without her \u2013 she would have spoiled them like no other especially with her shopping habits.\u00a0 There are going to be times, I\u2019m sure many of times, where we will feel her void but I can only hope that we will feel her presence at the same time.<\/em><\/p>\n

Brenda, even though you never complained of your condition or your diagnosis, we know you were in pain\u2026you are pain free now and for that I am grateful\u2026.you can now do all those things that you have dreamed about doing the last 8 years\u2026.Rest in Peace Grandma Brenda.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How do you explain death to a toddler? In the course of one week Justin and I have had to explain the concept not once but twice to Avery and Emerson.\u00a0 Last Sunday they attended the funeral of their Great … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-1568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-grandma-brenda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/themaddlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/themaddlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/themaddlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themaddlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themaddlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/themaddlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1568\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/themaddlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themaddlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themaddlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}