Eva Randine Westlund Genter : January 18, 1917 - August 10, 2008

Yesterday I got the call. My dad told me last week that they'd moved her over to hospice care, so we knew it was only a matter of time. I was riding my bike past the Peninsula Park rose garden, so I stopped and sat for awhile to remember my grandma. I stole a rose (shhh) and saved it for the funeral.

Gramma G lived the next town over from me all of my life. My family spent every weekend of my childhood with my grandma. She taught me all of the German cookery that I will ever need to know. She taught me the "psychic" game that we played over and over again to trick people out with our "psychic powers." We had art shows and wrote plays and went on long walks, and she bandaged me up when I fell off my bike. Her house was full of all sorts of "old people" things, I usually spent hours every time I was at her house exploring through all of the old people stuff. She loved tabloids, and when she was done reading them, she'd give me a grocery bag full of them, and they were always marked up with her notations on things she found interesting. I have a million and one memories of her, and I don't even know how I'm going to pare them down for when I speak at her funeral.

But now she's finally no longer in pain. And now she can be with my grandpa Dave, who was gone long before I was born. Rest in peace, Grams.