My Grandma Giesbrecht passed away on Monday. It wasn’t a complete shock, in the middle of last week, she suffered a stroke that the doctors said she wouldn’t recover from. So, in a way, we kind of knew it was coming (well, for 4 days anyway).
She was my step-grandma actually. My grandma Giesbrecht (yes, that was my maiden name) died when I was eleven, and a year and a half later, my grandpa remarried. I’ve known this grandma longer than I knew my other. I can remember when we first met her. It was Christmas of ‘94 and our family was heading out to Saskatchewan to celebrate with our families. Grandpa had planned his wedding around the holiday, so all of us could be there. We all knew that after the wedding, grandpa would be moving to BC, where Frieda was from, to live with her there, and I can clearly remember us cousins sitting in the basement of Grandpa’s house, probably after an injury prone round of manhunt in the dark, talking about this fact. We were all a little bit ticked that this new lady was going to sweep in and steal grandpa away and were trying to think of what we could do to convince him to keep living in Sask. in the house we all knew as grandpa and grandma’s. We couldn’t come up with any quick solutions, so we all sighed, shrugged our shoulders, turned off the lights, and began one of our last rounds of manhunt in grandpa and grandma’s basement.
(the cousins last summer, at Amber’s wedding. Missing my brothers and Isobel)
Those initial feelings towards “Grandma Frieda” changed as we got to know her. She was an incredible woman of faith. She spent years serving in Africa with SIM, and could tell you story after story after story of the people she became friends with there, and the things she did. She didn’t marry until her 70’s, when she married grandpa. She could cook like no one else, and we were often the recepients of unbelievable meals. I was always amazed at what she would seemingly “whip up”, with just a few ingredients, and no recipe in sight. She was bound and determined to keep up with technology, and her and I would chat on MSN. She never quite figured out how to use it properly, so our conversations never lasted long, but at least she tried. She has friends from all over the world who she would keep up with through email. She would often comment on how if they went away for a few days, she would come home and there would be 200 emails for her to sort through. (What can I say, she was more popular than I’ll ever be).
Because my family is originally from out west (and we moved to ON), we didn’t see them often. During my years of working for Redeemer, I had BC as one of my recruiting territories. So for 2 weeks, twice a year, I got to stay with them. I am grateful for those times. She would always ask me meaningful questions about my life, my marriage, and my future plans to go into ministry. She would force feed me far too much food. I know that a lot of people can probably say that about their grandparents…that they always had food around…but this was different. I eventually had to develop a strategy and put way smaller portions on my plate, knowing there was often another round of food coming. At times, I’d have to get firm and absolutely refuse more food – to which she’d always reply “But Karmyn, you’re getting way too skinny – I’m worried”. (I think her eyes were bad). When I would leave, she and grandpa would always walk me out, waiting at the front door of their condo and watch me drive away. I would always offer to take them out for supper (Since they were saving Redeemer so much in hotel bills), but it was usually a battle, as Grandma already had all her meals mapped out that she wanted to serve me. She would always give me something of hers each trip, usually a momento from Africa. (although one time, it was a 1970’s casserole dish). I would try and explain that I didn’t have a lot of extra room in my luggage, and she’d pshaw me and say, ‘oh we can make it fit’. So we would. My last trip out there was a month before I left Redeemer to begin my new job as a youth director at the church where we currently serve. She was so thrilled that I was going into ministry and gave me one of her books entitled “Women in Ministry”. I’m pretty sure it’s from the 50’s, and probably 90 % of it isn’t relevant to where I’m at, or my thoughts on the topic – but it meant a lot that in her own way, she wanted to equip me to serve. As a woman who was in ministry for decades, she, on some level knew what I would experience and did what she could to support me in that.
So, yes, I’m sad. Sad that she’s gone. Death is sad. But I am so thankful for the memories we do have, and for who she could be for my grandpa these past 15 years. She will be mourned and celebrated by people all over the world, and that speaks volumes about her impact. (Ben and I sadly won’t be able to make the funeral, as it’s out in BC, and we can’t really afford it at this time.) As a family, we’re so thankful for the fact that we know she’s in heaven, and although it’s not really theologically sound, Ben remarked the other night that she’s probably busy cooking up a storm.
Goodbye Grandma.
