Grandma's Closet

This past week I helped my mom clean out my Grandma's closet. It was such a whirlwind of emotions. I force myself to never think about it because it is just so hard. But, this just put it right in my face. Everything smelled like her and felt like her. It was so emotional and so exciting at the same time. I know this may sound goofy but it was like a treasure hunt. I just kept finding so many meaningful things and old documents. Almost every pocket had tissues in it and a handful had her handkerchiefs. She always had handkerchiefs.  We actually buried Hunter with one of her old ones. Here are the top 3 items that stood out to me:

Her journals. This woman kept a journal since she was 15. She has boxes and boxes of them. I could sit and read them all day. EVERY single year on Aug 17th, she wrote next to the date that it was my birthday. I got to read the one of when we got married. I really read through the year when I was two years old. She wrote in there, "I kept Jayme today. She took a really long nap so she was up until 11:00. Whew!" Another post read, "I took all the kids to church today. Jayme just looked like a princess all dressed up." It makes me tear up just writing it. I always knew that I spent a lot of time with her but reading her journals she really was with us kids all the time, all 7 of us. I remember when I would come home from school in Elementary and no one would be home I would be scared. I would call her and she would come right over. The thing that stuck out to me and taught me so much was that her life revolved around two things. Her family and the church. Her life was just that simple and she had the most meaningful, happy filled life of anyone I know. Those two things were her pride and joy.

My dress. As I was going through her closet I found one of my old dresses that I wore when I was little. She had kept it all these years.

This letter. In our church the women visit teach other women in the ward once a month to be a support system. My Grandma was assigned a letter route where she wrote to a couple women that were inactive. There was this one lady that she wrote EVERY month for 11 years. She never had gotten one response or even met her. Randomly, after 11 years she finally heard back.