Remembering

Yeah I know. It's been a week since my last post. Pretty rare for a long stretch of silence like this. I wanted to write this week about Winterfest and Nate's new sausage making hobby and other fun and light hearted things of that nature. But life kind of came crashing to a halt last weekend and I just haven't felt like blogging about those things. Last Saturday, Nate's Grandpa Pete passed away. He was in ill health but it was still rather sudden. The funeral was yesterday. So needless to say, we've been a bit preoccupied this week.

I was thinking about it yesterday and I realized that I have known Nate's grandparents for pretty much the entire almost 14 years we've been together. I still remember when I met them for the first time. Nate called me up one Sunday after we'd only been dating about a month and said "hey, we're going over to my grandparents this afternoon for a bit and I was wondering if you'd like to come over and meet them." And 16 year old me is like "OMG he wants me to meet his extended family? Parents are one thing, but wow, this must be serious!" I was so floored, but delighted. Nervous as I was, I agreed to go over to meet them.

They were nothing but kind the minute I set foot in their house. I remember feeling so comfortable and welcome that my nerves disappeared immediately. I believe one of his aunt and uncles were over that day as well. We sat at their kitchen table and they taught me to play Mexican Dominoes. When I left that day they said they hoped they would see me again. And of course, they did see me again. And I always felt the same comfortable, welcoming atmosphere as I did that very first day.

I didn't really get to grow up with a grandfather as my Grandpa Miller passed away before I was born and my Grandpa Gilles passed away when I was only in 1st grade. So I feel blessed and fortunate to have known and had a relationship with both of Nate's grandfathers, but especially Grandpa Pete because he lived here (Grandpa Ray lived in St. Louis and has also been gone from this world for about five years now). So my heart is sad even though this was expected, it's never easy to say goodbye to someone.

Yesterday we had a nice celebration of his life and it was interesting to see how they do things in the Russian Orthodox church. I have no doubt in my mind that he is in a better place now and I am so glad he suffers no more.

Things should slowly be returning to normal and hopefully I'll be able to post about all those other things soon! But for now, that is the news from here.