Our trips in the past we have stopped at Treasure City, a store with "treasures" for all ages. The kids get $5 each and it takes them a good 30 minutes to decide what to pick. This trip, I decided to change it up. I convinced them that it would be worth it to stop at Animal Land, in Bemidji, instead of Treasure City. Animal Land is advertised as a place to being able to walk with the deer, feed the bears & kangaroo's etc. They quickly agreed that this would be a good trade off, if they could get a souvenir at Animal Land... Fair enough I thought.
The kids enjoyed feeding the bears, kangaroo, porcupines, raccoons, etc. but I walked around so sad for these animals. It was a place that I was not proud to be at and was certainly not happy to support. I had to explain to the kids that we would not be buying a souvenir from this place but would stop at the gift shop in Great Grandma's town and they could pick something out. They were fine with that after I told them that, "mom doesn't like the way these animal have to live day to day and I don't want to support it."
Almost to Great Grandma's and Kasey asked, "Mom are we finally going to get to go see where Great Grandpa is?" This is something they have been asking to do the last many trips up north. My grandpa died in 1994 but the kids have recently (last year or so) wanted to go see his "stone." While we were there we talked about Great Grandpa and a little about death but mostly made it a happy experience and emphasized that great grandpa is so happy we stopped by. Tori has always talked about great grandpa and has been emotional about how much she loves and misses him. Something I have not been able to understand since she has never met him and I don't talk about him often enough for her to have this bond. I have 2 pictures (one in my room and one is in Jacques' race room) of great grandpa yet she tells me "that does not look like "my" great grandpa." I think to myself, ya but it is and move on. So we get to my grandma's and we decided to show her some pictures of great grandpa. When we ask her, "does this look like great grandpa? " She says, "no." She says no to the fist several pictures (all of which are him in his elder years). Then we show her a picture of great grandpa when he was much younger and we ask, "does this look like great grandpa?" With a big smile on her face she says, "yes!" Tears filled my eyes.
We leave the cemetery and finally head to see Great Grandma. We bring the rest of the bouquet to her. She is all smiles when Wylie, Kasey and Tori barge though the door and in unison say, "hi great grandma" in their loudest, yet calm voices ,(they know they get away with it here as she is so hard of hearing). We visit with Great Grandma, show her the photo books and scrap books of recent trips, birthdays etc and have dinner together. She always treats us to dinner at Dairy Queen. I go pick it up and we have a picnic on her living room floor on a towel. It's perfect. Time keeps ticking and it gets later and later yet we are not getting ready to leave. I don't know if the kids think about it (probably not) but I do and each time we go I can just only hope that it isn't the last trip we take to visit Great Grandma. I think this is why I am not so much in a hurry to get back in the car and head home as I used to be.
There is an endless amount of love for Great Grandma and it melts my heart each and every time we go visit and I see my kids' face when they talk to her, hug her and say good bye. I am so happy that my kids know this kind of everlasting love and have gotten to experience it with my grandma.
~It's My Life~
