Grandpa Lee

I'm a little late on all my posts, but better late than never. My grandfather passed away a couple weeks ago, and Adilyn and I went up to Michigan for the memorial service. When my grandmother passed away 6 years ago, I decided not to go. I had just had knee surgery, and I was still recovering a little bit. The minute I decided not to go, I regreted it. Because my grandmother lived in Michigan with the rest of my extended family, I never really had any closure on my end. I never really felt like she was gone. From that time on, I promised myself that I would never miss another funeral or memorial service again no matter what the circumstances were. Cory and I went back and forth trying to decide who would go and who would stay, but I decided that I would take Adilyn. She can sleep in a normal bed, and she can handle a couple long days better than Kacy could. We decided to use some standby passes that my mom had access to from working at American Airlines all those years. Our adventure began on Friday night. We flew up to DFW to spend the night at my dad's house. Everything went well except for the fact that our bags were stuck in transition, so we had to sleep in Mimi's borrowed t-shirts! Adilyn thought that was pretty funny. In Fort Worth, we picked up two more travelers - Brandon and Greg flew on the same flight with us on Saturday morning from DFW to Detroit. We had to wake up so early; it was pretty painful! Luckily Adilyn slept on the plane a little bit because we had a long day in front of us. Adilyn is such a great traveler these days! We color, read books, talk about things, and she is just fine. The only problem we had was when she had a bathroom emergency at a time when there was no bathroom available. We had just began our decent when she said that she had to go peepee. I told her that we couldn't go right then, but she proceeded to scream, "It's coming out! It's coming out!" I tried distraction, I tried calming her down...nothing worked. I was ready for a wet seat right there! Then I told her that if she had to pee that bad she could pee in the throw up bag. I took it out and everything. I was a kind of serious, but she was mortified! So...she held it! What a big girl! :)
My uncle, Richard picked us up and we headed straight to my grandfather's house where everyone was getting ready. We were there for enough time to grab some pizza then we had to head straight to memorial service. It was so great to see everyone. Of course, the circumstances were not the best, but it is always great to see family that you haven't seen in years.
The memorial service was amazing. My mom and all my aunts had beautiful things to say about their father. There were so many people there that just adored him - friends from the coffee shop, waitresses from his favorite restaurants, and other people from the community. How nice it must be when the end of your life comes that you have a room full of people with beautiful memories of you! There were many slideshows in between when everyone talked, and those are always my favorites. Moments in time that will never be erased...I love it!
When my mom gave her speech, she was crying. Adilyn started crying too. It was really sad. She asked me why Nammie was crying, and I told her because she missed her Dad. She said that was why she was crying, too becasue she missed her Daddy.
After the memorial service, we went to dinner with everyone and then back to the house. Dinner went well, with the exception of Adilyn throwing a fit in the corner. It's a good thing that the restaurant was loud because I completely ignored her. :)
Back at the house, my aunt Marcy and Adilyn made a leaf pile, so Adilyn could jump in it. I think that was her favorite part of the trip! We had to get to bed early because we had to get up the very next morning at 5am. Finally, we made it back to my aunt's house. Adilyn went right to bed, and Brandon and I stayed up and chatted with my aunt. It was a nice time to reflect on memories and all the fun times we had in the past.
I know now that we really need to go up to visit each summer. We thought about going last year, but we didn't because it was expensive. If we would have spent the money, Adilyn and Kacy would have been able to see Grandpa Lee one more time. I would have been able to spend a little more time with him before he was gone. I think that many times when someone passes away, you think about what you could have done differently when they were alive. I don't want to feel like I didn't do enough again. I want to feel like I spent as much time with that person that I could have!
All in all it was a great experience, and I am really glad that we made the quick trip! It was a time that I will never forget.