Gametes In Love

Today we celebrated the life of my grandmother with a funeral that was planned by her. Several years ago she selected songs, poems, and people to speak. It was a pretty awesome event filled with family and friends.

I drafted most of this post last night. As I listened to two of my cousins talk today about my grandmother, it wasn’t surprising that my thoughts and memories are very much the same as theirs.

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Lorena Hudson Piper – 1915 – 2013

I am grandchild #8 and the father of two of her great grandsons. 

Even though Lorena was her given name I don’t recall ever hearing her called by that name in a casual setting. When I was a child she was ‘Grandma Piper’. Others called her Aunt Teet or Teetie — which as a kid I thought was hilarious. It was only when I was a teenager that I learned that ‘teetie’ was how her younger brother pronounced ‘Sweetie’.

While she will always be Grandma Piper to me, the name I’ve grown to love is just ‘Piper’. It’s such a contemporary name for a woman who lived almost 100 years. Simple. Understated.

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G and I were working on his second homework assignment this week-end. At the end, I asked him to write his own name on his paper… mostly so that I could see him try. Not only did he try, he did a kick-ass job! I didn’t even realize he could. As I watched him shape letter after letter, I was so amused/impressed/in awe, it just took me awhile to realize “I should be recording this!”. So here you go, evidence of him doing his own letters 🙂 Sure his G is up-side down, and his N is really an M, but you know what? MY KID IS WRITING HIS OWN NAME!!!!

[youtube=http://youtu.be/kE-Peu0Uzh8]

(Side note: I worry about his school days. We are getting the assignments done in time, with days to spare, but I really wish I could get myself in order to do them right away).