Four Good Shows

You know, usually Fringe is hit and miss but today I managed to see 4 shows and all of them were good shows. Not bad, not bad at all.

The last one I saw today was Forget Me Not, which was more of a story with music than a play, but the music was phenomenal and the story was one I connected to strongly due to my personal circumstances. It started off as a story of the girl that got away from the storyteller's grandfather, but ended as a love story to her Grandmother Margaret. Almost a year ago to the day, I lost my Grandmother Margaret and as the story turned, so did my mind, to recollections of the beautiful person that I loved so dearly and lost at this time of year last year. I spent the last 10 minutes of the show sobbing in a body shaking way, grieving and yet rejoicing in the wonderful person I knew and would always think about. I love you Margaret Ann Strand, and I miss you. I think of you every time I write a letter and every time I wear your red hat or see the Grandpa Bear that you made for me with Grandpa's shirt. Tonight I will make a cup of tea and drink it from one of the delicate teacups you passed along to me and I will think of you.

Needle Woes...

I took the boys for their H1N1 shots today. I deliberately didn't tell them until just before we went. They both have a tendency to be dramatic (not sure where that comes from) and the longer they would know, they more worked up they would get. So we got the shots and within 5 minutes, Oliver threw up. Yay. That was fun. Gibson was very mad at Oliver and I because we told him it wasn't bad (it wasn't, but he said it was horrible). Luckily my Mom came with us. We waited in the medical room for Oliver's stomach to calm down and for them to make sure it wasn't an allergic reaction and she ran off to Zellers to buy Oliver a new outfit since his was pretty gross.

We are home now. You can't tell that just 2 1/2 hours ago Oliver threw up and Gibson was angry at us. They are playing actively and watching the movie that Grandma picked up when she bought the outfit. And hopefully, we are immune to H1N1.

Stretching Out to Eternity...

This week, my Grandmother, Margaret Ann Strand, passed away. We were expecting it. We had about a week's notice that the infection she had was not improving and that there was little the doctors could do about it. She was ready to go. We were not ready for her to leave us. All her life she looked after other people. She was one of the oldest of several children so she no doubt spent much of her childhood helping to care for the younger children in the family. She married my Grandfather and they had 5 children, whom she raised into wonderful, strong willed, smart and educated adults. My grandfather had several bouts of cancer (lung and prostate) and she spent much of the end of his life caring for him as well as providing support for her 5 adult children and their families. After my grandfather passed away 9 years ago she became the one everyone looked after. It must be hard to shift to that position. We corresponded quite a bit. I love letter writing and she was always good to write back. We mostly wrote about what we were doing, but underneath the chit chat of everyday life and little adventures there was always the tone that she was so very proud of me. I always felt like one of her favorites, but I am pretty sure that everyone of my cousins and siblings felt the same thing. She was like that. Her love for us was unmeasurable and infinite. My middle name is her first. That is why I use the middle initial when I do theatre and writing work. It is in homage to her and always has been. She may be gone from this world, but she will always be with me. As I have in the past, I will continue to make decisions factoring in 'what would Grandma think?' I will miss her.