Grandma Stanton

  Most of you know, but my wonderful mother passed away after a brief but heroic battle with cancer on December 29th.  I still don't quite believe it and everyday is a struggle.  I miss her so very much and I feel a huge hole in my heart.  I regret not taking more pictures of her with the babies.  She never wanted her picture taken after she lost her hair from the chemotherapy.  I do have a few pictures though:

I'm mostly doing this blog as a way for the babies to see how they began their lives.  Grandma Stanton was a huge part of the first 7 months of their lives.  Below is the speech I read at her funeral.  I believe it encaptures my mother and how much she loved Cameron and Allie.  I am sad for myself and my family but I am mostly sad that my children will never get to know their Grandma Stanton.  She would have loved them to the moon and back.

To know her was to love her.  My mother was an amazing woman…as a teacher, as a wife, as a mother, as a grandmother, and then finally as someone battling cancer.  Everything she did, she did with energy, dedication, and always a smile on her face.  Her career was a huge part of her life as she taught in the Wyalusing Area School District for 36 years.  I have met so many people over the years who have said my mom was their favorite teacher.  One person was even a bit angry at me because the year she was supposed to have my mom, my mom was out on maternity leave with me. 

My mother never stopped trying to better herself as a teacher.  When I began my career as a teacher I told my mom about something called United Streaming.  She instantly pursued this and got it implemented into the school.  And let’s not even talk about the visual presenter.  Another thing that I told my mom about and she jumped on it – and now there are several visual presenters all over the building that I’m sure teachers wonder how they ever lived without.

As a grandparent…my mother loved it.  She was blessed to have met her 8 grandkids before passing and she loved everyone as much as she could.  From going to baseball games, wrestling matches, choir concerts, dance recitals, basketball games, she tried to be there for all of them.  And for my two babies.  My mother never had the chance to enjoy them without the cloud of cancer being over her.  My babies were born on June 5^th and my mother was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer on June 11^th.  However, that did not stop her from being the best grandmother she could to those 2 precious babies.  In the midst of going through her chemo treatments, she would drive herself down to Allentown and help out the best she could.  She would even get up and do the 3:00 feedings because she said she loved doing night feedings.  She said it felt like it was just her and the baby awake in the entire world. 

Some people have questioned whether or not the 2 brain surgeries my mom endured since November 1^st were worth it.  I believe they were.  After the first surgery, my mom was able to come to my home on Thanksgiving day and spend 5 days before I had to take her back to the hospital for an infection in her brain.  During those 5 days, I saw her get stronger and happier.  She was able to spend time with the twins, eat dinner with my husband and myself, continue her exercises, and even play a game of Scrabble.  After the second surgery, she was able to spend 11 days at my home.  These are 11 days I will always cherish.  She continued to get stronger.  The day she graduated from the walker to the cane was a great day.  She was ecstatic.  The day the fingers on her left hand moved for the first time was another wonderful day.  We had figured out a way for her to feed the babies.  She helped make dinner…Made out my grocery list..Cleaned the kitchen each morning...did some Christmas shopping on the internet…And would help me bathe the babies and rub lotion on their little bodies.  All the while doing her exercises and trying to get stronger for her family.

My mother was a great mother.  Yes, she was strict, and yes my brother and I have memories of being grounded…well maybe my brother has more of those memories than I do.  But my mom just wanted to be there for us and do whatever she could for us. 

Mom and I had so many adventures.  People used to say to us, “These kinds of things never happen to us and they happen to you all the time!”  I could talk for hours about our adventures but just to name a few…the time we went to New York City for the Radio City Music Hall Christmas show.  We had a few hours to kill and we decided it would be fun to have a really nice tree topper from New York City for our Christmas trees at home.  That began our adventure of tromping all over the city looking for just the right one.  We finally asked a cop where she thought we could find one and she said Bloomingdales.  At this point, we had about an hour before we had to be at Radio City.  Did this stop us?  No way….we hailed a taxi – which by the way seeing my mom hail a taxi was hilarious – ran into Bloomingdales.  Asked where the treetoppers were, and of course they were on the 6^th floor.  Ran up the escalator, found just the perfect ones.  Went to check out..of course there was no UPC on one of the toppers.  The cashier then proceeded to give us our change in all pennies…ran back down the 6^th floors of escalators…hailed another cab.  And made it all back to Radio City in time to enjoy the show.

Or the time my husband, mom, and myself went to Wildwood New Jersey for a week’s vacation.  My mom was a huge lover of the beach and ocean and loved to boogie board.  My husband and I are more of lay on the beach and read a book kind of people, but my mom would be boogie boarding in that ocean.  At one point, I realized I hadn’t seen my mom out in the ocean for a bit.  I stood up and scanned the water to see if I could find her.  I went back to Mike and asked him what he thought.  Now Mike is pretty easy going, and when he said maybe we should tell the lifeguard, I instantly freaked out.  I went over to the lifeguard, described my mom to him, and he said he’d keep an eye out for her.  About 10 minutes later, I hear him yell to me and say, “Is this her?”  And yes, there she was.  Looking like a drowned rat but with a huge smile on her face.  The ocean had swept her way down and she wasn’t sure where she was when she got out of the water.  My mom was never very good with directions so had walked the wrong way along the beach for a while.  She, and I, and I think even Michael, were very relieved that she found her way back to us.

I told my mom I would not let this world forget who she was.  I have all kinds of plans to keep her memory alive – especially for my two babies.  And I ask all of you to please do the same.  Keep using that worksheet that she may have designed….keep using those visual presenters….keep telling the funny stories….keep doing the line dances that she loved to do….keep doing random acts of kindness that she so loved to do….keep smiling and staying positive….keep exercising and eating healthy but don’t forget to give yourself a treat once in a while….especially peppermint patties…maybe even be part of a human pyramid at a wine fest.

So, in closing, I would like to play the piano for my mother.  She is the reason I am a music teacher today.  I wanted to quit piano when I was in the 4^th grade and she wouldn’t let me.  I have no idea what I would be doing today if she had let me quit.  So, Mama, here’s one final song for you.  I love you and I’ll be talking to you.