David and I came very close to not even going. The thought of flying, last minute, with a four month old and all our "stuff" just completely stressed me out. Not to mention it was going to be quite expensive! The thought of driving, 900 miles there and 900 miles back, made me equally nervous given the winter storm that had just blown through. Plus, I had no idea what to expect from Grace on a 14 hour road trip. In the end, the thought of not being there at all made me the most uncomfortable, so we drove. If I had any other car I might not have been okay with this option, but Volvo's are supposedly built like tanks. David assured me we'd be fine.
So, we left home at 9:30 Monday morning and got there around 12:30 that night (with the time change). We did hit some snow/ice in Oklahoma which slowed us down a bit, but we still made great time. Grace was an absolute angel. We only stopped four times to get gas or food and I would change her diaper, work out her little arms and legs, and nurse. The rest of the time I would pump and just feed her on the fly. I think she slept 10 of the 14 hours...and amazingly still went to bed when we got there. The drive back was essentially as easy.
Indiana was covered in snow, and Covington is such a small town that much of it was untouched. It was so surreal. We spent a good chunk of every summer up there on my Grandma's farm. My dad would help out on the tractor and we would help in the garden. Pretty much everything we ate was homemade and fresh from the farm...and all delicious. We went to church up the hill, where Grandma played the piano, and attended their Vacation Bible School. You can actually see the farm from where my Grandma and Grandpa (who passed away when I was little) are buried. We went by there after the graveside service and that's when it hit me. All our memories of Indiana are just that now...memories. We'll never really be able to explain it to our children and grandchildren, or even our husbands really. Just like it's impossible to explain our Grandma Coleman to anyone that didn't know her. How hard she worked, how totally unselfish she was, how she never said a bad word about ANYONE, just how she lived in general. She was the definition of 'one of a kind'.
Despite the circumstances, it was so nice to be with that side of the family again. It seems to be constant laughter when everyone is together. We also got to see several faces from around town and from the church; faces we'd grown up seeing every summer. It was pretty amazing how many people turned out, in the snowy weather, to pay tribute to a 98 year old woman. Everyone had a story, too. She'd taught them music, cooked them food, and so on and so on. I would give anything to go back and have one more day with her. As a child and teenager, you only see the small picture. It often annoyed me that I was there instead of home with my friends at the pool. Then as an adult, you let yourself get busy. I hadn't see her since Kimmie and I took our husbands up there in the Spring of 2008. I like to think she understood, though. Our last exchange, as we told her goodbye during that last visit, was this:
Me - "We're going to come back again really soon, Grandma!"
Her - "Well if I don't see you then, I'll see you sometime."
I look forward to it...
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