bowel-shaking earthquakes of doubt and remorse...

One evening last week, I went to bed. I started thinking about my grandma and started crying and then couldn't stop. I seriously just could not stop. Shannon was at the library and when she came home, I was sitting on the toilet lid, holding a roll of toilet paper. Aside-I do not understand when books talk about people's faces being tear-stained. Even if I don't wipe them away, it's not like you can see the tear tracks down my face. I mean, you can tell if I've been crying recently because my eyes will be puffy or my birthmark will be extra purple. But actual tear tracks? No. Is this just me? Anyway, she was all, but you're just grieving. It was just it was so random and then I couldn't stop it. I'm going to have to look for the picture my grandfather gave me when I was 15. It was of my grandma when she was 14, and it looked so much like me. I was excited that I finally had some resemblance to someone in my family. Now I know that there is resemblance between me and Dave and Mark, but I guess maybe we were still growing and I couldn't see it then.

My grandma taught me how to braid when I was little. Not by sitting me down and showing me, but by giving me a braid and a doll and telling me to figure it out. She did tell me she would show me if I couldn't figure it out, but I managed. She made doll clothes for my Barbies that I loved so much. They were so much better than the skanky Barbie brand clothes. And just think about how much worse Barbie's clothes have gotten. My Barbies had an awesome peasant blouse and a cool flippy tulip skirt and several other good items. When I was 8, my grandparents gave my cousin who is Dave's age the box set of the Anne of Green Gables books. I remember reading the backs and thinking they looked awesome, and my grandma was paying attention. Guess what I got for my birthday 6 months later? Only what became my all-time favorite book series ever! Seriously, you would know how much I loved those books if you saw my copies. And I know a lot of people probably think they are dated, but I think the themes are timeless, but that's a discussion for another time. Right after she gave me those books, she made a doll for me. It was a doll with reddish hair, freckles, blue-ish eyes, and a mouth that turned down a bit and had a pronounced cupid's bow. I didn't even realize until then that my mouth did that. But then I saw what she already knew. It was an awesome doll -not like, a rag doll, but a real doll-it's hard to explain. I wish we hadn't given it away, along with the Barbie clothes. But I still have the memories. My grandma was a wonderful, godly lady. The night she died, my family and my cousins and aunt and grandfather were all sitting around at the house, looking at old pictures, when we found a photo of Mark, sometime under the age of five, wearing what were basically blue lederhosen and a rainbow bow tie. We were all cracking up over this, when my mom got all upset and told us to stop laughing. She was like, Grandma made those for him! We were like, so? If Grandma saw that picture now, she would totally laugh.