I love you

Today, my grandma would have been 73. “I love you” were the last word she said to me. I had left a message for my grandpa about three weeks ago to wish him a happy birthday and my grandma had called me back and left me a message to let me know that she relayed the message to him and that she loved me.

The last time I saw her was in August. You can see my blog post about their visit here. About a week and a half ago I received the call that my grandma was going to die. I thought, “What???” My dad explained that she had had a heart attack and was without oxygen for 15 minutes. She was on life support and had no brain activity. She always said she never wanted to live on a machine. My grandpa honored her wishes Thursday, February 18th and let her go home to be with God. It must have been the toughest decision he’s ever had to make.

We made the trip to Florida and spent time consoling my grandpa and each other. It was all so surreal because I’ve never had someone I’m close to die. My mother’s mom died 5 years ago but I wasn’t close to her. It hurt me to see my mom in so much pain but it didn’t effect me as much. The one thing I will say about funerals is that it brings family together. So much of my dad’s side of the family is completely unknown to me. Relatives I haven’t seen in years I’ve finally gotten to see again.

All of this got me thinking so much about how much we want to live in Florida. There are so many things I’ve taken for granted. Had we been living there we could have spent more time with my grandparents. I could have been there at the hospital with her to say goodbye but I know God has had us up here for a reason. We had planned to be there a few days to help my grandpa with the things he needed help with but it turned out other family members were helping so we decided to stay a few extra days and look at houses in Florida. It was also strange to be back because I haven’t been back in 2 years and for the first time, I didn’t recognize many of the things from my parents’ house. I lived there for almost 20 years and after only 2 I couldn’t remember what it all looked like. It was serene. Who wouldn’t want to live here? There’s peaceful wild life everywhere. I was so thankful to be home. It really is where I belong. Colby can’t get enough of it. He just LOVES my parents’ house. It really made me realize that I want so badly (more-so than I thought) to be by my family and friends. Here are some photos of it.

These gorgeous flowers were sent to my family from my cousin, Marlea, and her husband, John.

Pure Florida oranges straight from my dad’s orange tree. Nothing is better.

How could I have possibly forgotten the beautiful sunrises at my parents’ house? I mean look at the beauty? The awesome thing was that I woke up at 6:30 in the morning in hopes to see the sunrise. I could tell it was going to be an overcast/rainy day because the sky was full of clouds but I just kept hearing God say, “Grab your camera or I won’t make it happen.” I kept wanting to wait to see it before I went outside but He just kept telling me to grab it and go. I prayed he would make a beautiful sunrise for me to capture and sure enough He did. This beautiful, firey sunrise only lasted a few minutes before it went behind the clouds and it began to rain but look at the beautiful stillness of the glassy water? It was sort of an intimate time between me and God and his reminder that He loves me and that this is where I belong.

I just love the silhouette of everything. You can see some of the muscovy ducks up early to see if I had food for them (and I did-bread).

You can see it starting to go away and fall behind the clouds. You can also see a mallard swimming up to the shoreline to see if I had food for him too.

I saw the texture of the picnic table that I used to spend time at. I remember days of fishing with my dad and little brother. We’d put our tackle boxes on the table and get to fishing. It was so fun. You can see the table is old and rotting but I won’t ever forget those times.

The birds and ducks were so peaceful. I haven’t heard a bird sing in months! My mom has a couple of bird feeders right outside her bathroom window that she watches in the mornings. Notice this looks like the Twitter bird.

My mom has the muscovies trained. She gives them bread every day and they’ll eat it right out of your hand. This is Colby feeding the duck.

As if you couldn’t tell by reading already, there are tons of ducks down there. The lake they live on is home to muscovies, mallards, egrets, and geese. I remember growing up we raised 3 mallards. Only one is still alive (dang they live a long time!) but I remember when the babies used to hatch and you’d see some random ducks with their babies following them around the lake. They are SOOOOOO adorably cute when they’re small!

Jen Shannon Photograph, Chicago Wedding Photographer