Jack and I went with GMa out to Alfalfa for the Shaw Family Reunion over Memorial Day weekend. We also stopped at the cemetery in Gracemont and Anadarko to put out some flowers. On our way back through Tuttle, we stopped at the nursing home to see if we could visit Grandma Shaw. We weren't sure what the covid restrictions would be, and last time they wouldn't let us bring a baby in. When we first walked in, we saw Grandma sitting in her wheelchair across the room. She was almost unrecognizable to me at first...but then as we knelt down beside her, and she smiled at us, there she was...my Grandma Shaw.
I'm so glad that Jack got to meet his Great-Grandma Shaw this weekend. Alzheimer's is a cruel, heartbreaking disease. I know she probably didn't know who we were, but she smiled a lot and kissed my hand over and over.
I have so many sweet memories at Grandma & Pop's house growing up...
Going to the Carnegie fair--some of my all-time favorite childhood memories happened there (playing Bingo, riding the Ferris wheel and carousel, playing games, the tilt-a-whirl, turtle and frog races, the tractor pull, my dad singing in a quartet), Easter weekends, playing basketball in the driveway and darts in the garage, doing puzzles with Grandma, playing endless card games, going to the skating rink with a wood floor and listening to country music, watching movies at the Liberty Theater in Carnegie, (my dad took me to see The Blair Witch Project there!) picking strawberries and carrots with Grandma, playing and having fun with my cousins, learning to walk on the stilts Pop made all of us kids for Christmas one year, listening to Grandma play the piano and sing so beautifully, getting to choose between 10 kinds of cereal (but you better each it ALL or Grandma would get you for wasting it!), eating quail, pheasant, deer, fish...anything that had been hunted or caught, reading the Christmas story before opening presents every year, going to Fort Cobb and PSO lakes, learning to cross-stitch and watching Grandma crochet, and probably my favorite and most vivd memories with my Grandma...going to her little Methodist church on Sunday mornings. A lot of the time, I was the only one who went with her, so it was a special time that I got to spend with her and I knew it made her happy.
It's a sad thought to me that she can't remember any of these things. But I do remember...and it makes me smile.
It's been a very long time since I've been to a Shaw reunion. It is always bittersweet for me, without my Dad here. It would make him proud though, that I went. After all...I will always be a Shaw.
Jack brought a lot of smiles and joy into that nursing home. There were 4 or 5 other residents in the lobby area with us, and they all enjoyed watching Jack.
Jack loves Carver so much!
Eskimo kisses for Aunt Tootsie!
One more picture of Grandma and Pops house. Looking at it, you would think time has just stood still. So many wonderful memories here...
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