Saying goodbye to Grandma Prichard

B-rad's Grandma Prichard (his moms mom...) passed away a couple of weeks ago & we had to travel to Arkansas over the weekend for the service & burial.  She lived in Florida for over 30 years, but was born & raised in Arkansas, still has family there & that's where she wanted to be buried.  She was cremated (thus the reason for the time delay) & buried next to B-rad's Grandpa (who was also cremated.)  I didn't know you ever buried people who were cremated-but I learned that does happen when B-rad's Grandpa was killed 6 years ago...

(That's before I started blogging.  He was in his mid 70's & in relatively good health.  He was riding his bicycle one morning & was hit by a pick-up truck.  We had to travel to Arkansas for his service as well...)

Grandma was 81 years old.  She had been in poor health the last few years.  She was even a cancer survivor.  She had surgery about a month ago to repair a bowel obstruction & never came back from that.  She was a smoker & had copd so it was difficult for them to ween her off the vent afterwards.  She kept getting progressively worse & Ann (B-rad's mom) had to make some difficult decisions...  

It took B-rad & I 7 hours to get there.  We were bickering a bit as the trip started & 30 minutes into the 7 hours we both looked at each other & said (at the SAME time), 'this is gonna be a loooooong trip!'  

So Arkansas has nothingness.  Lots of cotton field & rice fields for as far as the eye can see.

B-rad loved it because he could look at ALL kinds of farm things.  Notice the BACK of his head in this pic?  He is driving...yet breaking his neck to see something that we had passed.   No, we are not stopped at a light...we are going about 65 mph down the highway.

The visitation was Friday evening so we all met up for an early dinner.  I sat in the back seat w/ B-rad & Brady.  They enjoyed talking to me...

Once we got to dinner Cole got added to the iPad club.  Notice B-rad tried to photo bomb me...

B-rad's dad made a video of pics of Grandma & her life.  It was really neat seeing the older pictures.  I've known Grandma for 20 years.  I met her 4 months after B-rad & I started dating.

Ann had a table w/ pics of Grandkids, great grandkids, great great grandkids & friends set up on a table w/ some other treasures.

There was another table w/ pics of Grandma & Grandpa, their 3 children, her dog Buddy & Grandma herself.  :) 

Madelyn is truly a child of the technological age.  I had my actual camera & I had to explain to her that she couldn't 'zoom in','touch the screen' or 'flip the camera around' on it.  (& yes, she tried to do all those things on it!)  I DID do my great-aunt duties & taught her how to take a selfie.

  I let her play with my camera most the evening.  She asked to play with my phone which got a resounding, "NO."  (I didn't care if she broke my camera - if she broke my phone I would cry...) It kept her entertained & I had 9,748,456 hilarious pics on my camera.  

Practicing the selfie...

 Oh, getting better!

 We are a family that loves our electronics...

Even this little gal was able to steal someones phone.  

Madelyn finallly got the selfie thing down... 

Brian, B-rad, Ann & Stan.

 These are some of the pics I sent to Stanley for the video.  B-rad, Ann, Brian & Grandma when we were in Arkansas for Grandpa's service.

 Our wedding.  1999.  (We were BABIES!)

 On Saturday morning we had a simple, yet lovely service.   Ann read a letter from Grandma's best friend of 42 years. Ya'll - it made me cry.  She wrote about the true meaning of friendship & their relationship over the years.  Ann said a few words as well & when she cried, I cried.  She did an amazing job, I know don't think I could have gotten up & spoken like that.  A local minister allowed other people to speak that felt led to do so & that was really neat.  Then he spoke about the 'normal' things they do at funerals... death, eternal life, etc.  Then we headed to the cemetary.  The headstone wasn't there when Grandpa passed away so we all saw that for the first time.   The minister said a prayer, Ann spoke again thanking everyone for coming & they laid Grandma to rest.  I loved the laid back feel & how simple yet touching it all was.    

 Afterwards many of the family went to a local steak house to eat.  Ya'll there were like 30 of us.  

It was CRAZY!  

My favorite memory of Grandma was the fact that I ALWAYS called her Grandma - NEVER Barb. By the time I was 21, all my grandparents had passed on.  I said to her once, "all my grandparents are gone."  She said, "No - WE'RE your grandparents now."  (That was even before B-rad & I got married...)  B-rad always teased me by saying that she liked me more than she did him.  She had no granddaughters so I'm sure I filled that void for her...

They LOVED their grandkids like crazy.  (Yes, I know all grandparents do!)  Grandpa & her would LIGHT UP when they would tell me stories of B-rad when he was young.  They told me the same stories every time we visited, but I never got tired of hearing them.  They told them w/ such love.  

Grandpa's stories were about B-rad catching fish when he was little & they'd come home & do all the nasty stuff you do to fish once they're dead & they'd lay all the guts under their orange tree.  He would always say they had such great oranges because B-rad fertilized it when he was little!   He also loved to tell me how B-rad had an amazing sense of direction when he was a little boy (which he still has!).  B-rad loved to go to Mather's bridge (not sure what was there - it's in Florida!) when he was little.  They'd get in the car & B-rad would say, "Grandpa - turn here!" 

  

Grandma's story was about the first time she spanked B-rad.  She said that he acted like the world had ended because she spanked him...  She told me "He cried & said, 'GRANDMA - You SPANKED me!"  

Finally, this is my favorite pic of B-rad & Grandma.  This was when we visited them in Florida in 2006 after her chemo & she had lost her hair.  B-rad keeps his hair so for a while they were twins...