Remembering Grandma Mary
My mother died 2 weeks after my first child was born. I never met my wife’s mother. The only Grandma my children ever knew was Grandma Mary. And the only Grandpa her grandchildren knew was my father. Every summer the merged families visited her cabin on the shore of Lake Ontario for a week or more.
Grandma Mary was nearly 100 when she died last winter. We waited for summer to gather. My generation, her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren. The memorial service was a sharing of memories of Gma Mary and our times at “the Lake”. We began and ended with a piper honoring her Scottish heritage and a parade of the great-grandchildren around and around. A huge picnic. Catching up on each others lives.
Watching the sunset over the far away Toronto skyline is a tradition. Then fireworks from surrounding locations celebrating the 4th. We added Chinese lanterns drifting north over Lake Ontario. My children and their children will never forget.
Families are Blue Zones.
Jay Ginther, MD