Celebrating my grandmas life

On October 17th I lost someone who had so much influence on the woman I am today. My grandma and I were really close and I will always cherish the memories that we’ve shared. I remember being really young and going with my grandma on a Saturday or Sunday morning to meet one of her friends for coffee, I would sit and scoot my chair in and place my napkin on my lap. It was a rule with my grandma to always have perfect table manners and dining etiquette. She'd then order me a hot chocolate and when I was halfway done with it, she'd top it off with coffee. I still to this day love a half-coffee, half-hot chocolate drink.

I would watch all of her favorite old movies with her (black and whites were the best), to the point where I'd know the lines to movies that most people even 20 years older than me wouldn't even recognize...

I'm going to stop myself right there with the memories because honestly, I need to dedicate a whole post to that alone. Today I wanted to share some photos that I took during her "farewell" day. It was only a couple of days before she passed, hospice told our family that it would be happening soon. Her kids and their families who live in California planned a trip here to see her before it was too late. She ended up passing before anyone got here, so they kept their flight reservations and we decided to do a rushed service to have something while everyone was here. It turned out so nice, my grandma would have loved the intimacy of it, with just her kids, grandkids, great-grandkids, and great-great-grandkids.

We held a nice little service at the Valley of the Temples in Kaneohe, it's a beautiful location at the base of the Ko'olau mountains. One thing that my grandmother loved so much was living in Kaneohe and being able to wake up and look at the Ko’olau mountains. So to know that we will be able to visit her in this spot will always be special. She was cremated so we got her a niche in their beautiful mausoleum. We were able to place her ashes and say goodbye before going to spend a beach day as a family. At the beach, I released some flowers for her as well. I'm so grateful to have had this day with family that I don't get to see as often as I wish.