Grandpa and Grandma Decker's Wedding Day
A Forever Love
This morning I woke up at 5 am, which is not like me on a Saturday morning! I like to sleep in but for some reason, thoughts of my Grandma Elly Decker started flooding my mind. I found an old friend on face book, and as I read his families blog I started wondering lots of things. His son was born with Congenital Femoral Deficiency. From reading their blog, I could tell this has been really hard for his family. As I was thinking about this and some other people whom are very close to me, my sister and her kids who are all 3 legally blind, amongst others I know who have had major health problems. I couldn't help but think about life and why some people have to go through these things, and others don't! I've come to the conclusion, that in the pre-existence of heaven some people chose to come to this earth with problems and challenges. I think they knew it would not be easy but they knew that some of the rest of us would have things in this life to learn.
Yesterday, I kept thinking to myself how hard life really is for some people, and I started feeling guilty that all of my kids were very healthy. Noah has struggled with ADHD, Mackenzie has a severe allergy to milk, and Joe is Bi-Polar and those things have been kind of hard for our family to deal with. I've been trying to get through college for the last 2 years, which has been a struggle with our family, not only financially but its been hard on my kids that I'm gone all the time. These things, I now realize, are nothing compared to a child who is in pain everyday, and for people who can't see, or people with other severe physical challenges.
This morning my thoughts turned to my dear Grandma Elly Decker who had MS (Multiple Sclerosis). She had this for the last 25 years of her life. Back then they didn't have medications that would help it from getting worse, (I believe they have some better medications now). I know life for her and my grandpa was very hard. They lived on a Dairy Farm, so my grandpa was always out milking the cows, and sometimes he couldn't be right there for my grandma, but he always did his best. He would get her up every morning, put her in her little recliner in front of her huge bay window, so that she could watch outside all day, and look at the beautiful farm scenery as well as her flowers, the birds, and the breeze as it blew through her trees, and she looked forward to that every day. Imagine how life would be, if all you could do was sit in a chair all day, watch tv, or watch out the window, this was how my grandmas life was every day, for roughly 25 years.
I was talking to one of my cousins one day, and we were talking about grandma, and we couldn't remember her ever acting like she felt sorry for herself, I don't remember her ever saying one bad thing about anyone. She had one of the most beautiful spirits I have ever known. I remember if anyone was talking negative about anyone my grandma would always step in and say something positive like, "Well, that person did this, or that, or that person has a beautiful smile." It was always something positive! We learned to never say anything negative around her. I remember when I was feeling sorry for myself one day, and my grandma told me, that things have been hard for her, and she said that one day she was feeling sorry for herself, then she realized that her thoughts needed to change, and so she decided that every day she was going to call someone, just to say hi, and see how their day was going! I learned from my dear grandma that Positive things can always come from negative things, if we choose to make it that way.
My grandparents had such strong love for each other. Everyday my grandpa would brush my grandma's hair, and tell her how beautiful she was every single day. He managed to fit that in along with all of his farm work. My grandpa taught me what an enduring love really is from the way he treated my grandmother. Even though she could only sit in her chair all day, she always knew that my grandpa loved her, and she felt like she was so beautiful because my grandpa always mede her feel that way.
Toward the end of my grandma's life we found out that she had Leukemia which was probably caused from all the medications she had been on with her MS. They couldn't do Chemo therapy, because her body was not strong enough to handle it. The doctors told us that he didn't think she would live for more than 3 weeks, she ended up living for about 3-4 months, and its because of her love for my grandpa, I think. She was so afraid to leave him. It was almost comical because she was telling everyone to take care of Tom, she was so worried about him, regardless of her pain, and how horrible she felt, she just worried about my grandpa. Now that is true love I'd say. She even told my grandpa she wanted him to get remarried. Things soon turned a lot worse. She got to where she would sleep all day and only wake up for about 1-2 hours a day. She hang on for so long because of my grandpa. It was torment for my grandpa to watch her suffer. I think my grandpa just wanted her to pass on so she wouldn't have to be in pain anymore.
In the last couple weeks of her life she kept telling us that she saw my great uncle Jerry. She kept saying he was standing in the room with them. My great Uncle Jerry passed away years ago when I was about 5 or 6. He was my grandpa's brother. WE thought it was interesting that she kept seeing him. I think that the veil between heaven and earth is very thin, especially when you are getting close to passing away. I think my great uncle was there, waiting for her to be ready, so he could take her pass the veil. After her saying this a few times, I think my grandpa felt reassured that his brother would be retrieving her spirit, so he finally told her "Elly next time Jerry comes, will you go with him, I want you to just go with him" Its okay you can go with Jerry" As hard as that had to have been for him, he told her that!
I think what this has taught me is, that God knows all of us, he knows what we need to learn in this life, he puts different people in our lives for different reasons, some of which only he knows. We can all take these opportunities to learn compassion, patience, love, and service. I am thankful for my sister who has taught me patience, and I feel bad that sometimes I'm not as good a sister and a friend as I should be. We can also learn to be thankful for our trials, and challenges, because they make us a better person.
If any of you have gotten this far in reading this, I hope my inspiration for writing it didn't waste your time, hopefully you have felt the spirit of God like I have today. I often get inspiration, to write something, or call someone, sometimes I ignore the intuitions, and sometimes I follow them! I am sorry it is so long! I tend to go on and on sometimes. What can
I say I talk ALOT!
I say I talk ALOT!
Grandma Frankie Goff with my sister Heather and I
My Dear Grandma Frankie Goff
I have so many memories of my Grandma Goff, some of which I promised my parents I would not tell! She inspired me throughout my life!
My grandma was always crafty! I remember her always sewing, embroidering, painting or cooking! If anyone ever went to her house she would not let anyone leave unless they let her feed them first! I use to absolutely love watching her work! I think she could tell how curious I was at watching everything she would do all the time, so when I was about 5 years old, she told me to find a piece of card board, a pen, and then she handed me a big bag of old fabric scraps. Then she told me to cut and trace these squares on the old pieces of fabric. I must have traced and cut at least a hundred or more squares. When I was done with that she took out this really old, black iron Singer sewing machine, and she began to teach me how to sew the little squares together to make a quilt! She had a love for fabric, and she had tons of it, she saved old clothes so she could use the fabric. I think a lot of us “Goff” and “Smith” girls got our love of fabric from her! I know Aunt Lucielle gave me at least 6 boxes of fabric one day, and she is always collecting more!
I remember baking all kinds of goodies with Grandma too! She was such a good cook! Heather and I use to go to her house all the time and make bread, fudge, peanut butter pop corn and more! She made the absolute best home made baked macaroni and cheese. Grandma was famous for her canning skills, her food storage ideas, and even her craftiness. Right after I got married, Connie Leigh, this older woman in Cortez who knew Grandma well, use to do these food storage, and cooking classes for all the young girls who were newly married and I remember feeling very proud when she would always mention “Frankie Goff taught me this” Connie learned everything she knew from my grandma! It was a good feeling! I use to get a kick out of how frugal grandma was all the time with her canning and food storage. I remember her calling around to everyone she knew who had any kind of fruit trees, asking if she could come and pick up the fruit off the ground so she could can it!
She always had chickens and ducks, and I'll never forget the day when Heather and I were at her house and she told us to come in the house and wait by the door for a minute because she was going to have a job for us, so we waited, looking out the screen door, next thing we knew grandma had grabbed a duck she bought, and she had an axe in her hand, we stood there watching and wondering what she was doing, next thing we knew she grabbed the ducks neck pulled it against this old stump in her yard and she chopped its head off! WE were completely shocked! We had no idea that, is what she was going to do! Then to top it off she made us pluck all the feathers out! That was the job she had for us! I'll never forget that day! I can still see the duck running around with its head cut off!
Grandma use to love going yard selling! I remember many times, when Heather and I went to yard sales all day, on many Fridays and Saturdays! I always use to look forward to going yard selling, it was the funnest thing ever! I learned from Grandma, that you don't have to be rich with lots of money to buy cool things you like! Just shop at thrift stores and yard sales. Even today, I would rather go digging through an old shed some where, or go to the thrift store and find good deals then to go shopping at the mall!
When Heather and I were little, my grandma had this little wood cabinet and she filled it up with play glass dishes. They were little plates and little cups just our size. Oh how we loved those beautiful little glass plates and dishes she allowed us to play with. I think what she had done was, she bought all these little teacup plates, or dessert plates, and they were so cute and little just our size, we would put real food and drink in them and play all day with them and since they were glass we thought we were so big! She also had this old launderette that was made with beautiful fabrics, I think she found those at yard sales too, and we use to dress up in them all the time! We didn't know that they were basicly old underwear!
One of my favorite things at my grandmas house was her glass cabinet! She had this cabinet with glass doors and she had everything from little salt and pepper shakers to glass dishes and unique colored glass bottles. Oh how we loved looking at all the beautiful things she had collected over the years. Her glass cabinet was one of her prized possessions. I looked forward to going to her house so I could look at all her cute little pretty things. Sometimes she would let us clean everything out of it, and dust everything then put it back! We loved to do that!
My grandma use to trade with all the Native Americans in our community they would give her hand made things and she would trade them for doing embroidery work on their indian shawls! She just loved all the Native Americans. She talked about them all the time, she thought they were so beautiful. She had a bunch of really old pictures of them that she enjoyed dying with colors since the pictures were black and white. Grandma Goff taught me to find the beauty in everything around me! She loved planting flower and vegetable gardens. Even as she got older she loved to plant her gardens. She use to paint all the time too! I remember her taking us to all kinds of weird places and she would set her little easel up and paint. I remember going to the side of the road somewhere, where she had a good view of the Ute Mountain so she could paint it. I use to love watching her paint, and she loved painting more than anything! We have lots of artists in our family, and its probably because of her influence.
I'll never forget the times she made my dad pull over to the side of the road on the way to Salt Lake City so she could collect different colors of sand. The whole way we would stop every time there was a different color of sand. We would have buckets of different colors of sand that she would either sell or trade to the Native Americans for their sand paintings! She use to appreciate the beauty of the earth around us. I remember driving through the desert and she would find the tiniest red or purple flowers out in the desert in the middle of no where, and she would talk the whole way about how beautiful they were. Now when I drive up to the mountains, or through the desert I can spot the most beautiful flower in the middle of nowhere, because she taught me how to notice those things!
As Grandma got older and she started living in Madison House she told my mom one day that she liked to make people laugh! She said it was her calling to make people who lived around her laugh! One way of doing this was she loved handing out candy to everyone she could. For the longest time she kept asking for huge bags of hard candy! SO we kept bringing it to her, we actually started getting worried when she had gone through one huge bag of candy in one week and was already asking for another one, Lucielle called my dad and said I think we need to get her checked for diabetes because we couldn't figure out why she was eating a huge bag of candy all in one week. Then we found out that what she was actually doing was wondering the halls handing candy out to everyone! She lived to make people laugh and to make people smile! I went to visit her in the nursing home 2 weeks ago, and she talked and talked, still trying to give candy to the kids! When I left I asked her what she wanted us to bring to her when we came back and as she laughed with a twinkle in her eye she said a Feller! Bring me a Feller!
Grandma brought so much joy and laughter to all of us, she will be missed, but I am thankful that she is now with her feller in heaven! I know we will all see her again one day! Her and her feller!
My grandma was always crafty! I remember her always sewing, embroidering, painting or cooking! If anyone ever went to her house she would not let anyone leave unless they let her feed them first! I use to absolutely love watching her work! I think she could tell how curious I was at watching everything she would do all the time, so when I was about 5 years old, she told me to find a piece of card board, a pen, and then she handed me a big bag of old fabric scraps. Then she told me to cut and trace these squares on the old pieces of fabric. I must have traced and cut at least a hundred or more squares. When I was done with that she took out this really old, black iron Singer sewing machine, and she began to teach me how to sew the little squares together to make a quilt! She had a love for fabric, and she had tons of it, she saved old clothes so she could use the fabric. I think a lot of us “Goff” and “Smith” girls got our love of fabric from her! I know Aunt Lucielle gave me at least 6 boxes of fabric one day, and she is always collecting more!
I remember baking all kinds of goodies with Grandma too! She was such a good cook! Heather and I use to go to her house all the time and make bread, fudge, peanut butter pop corn and more! She made the absolute best home made baked macaroni and cheese. Grandma was famous for her canning skills, her food storage ideas, and even her craftiness. Right after I got married, Connie Leigh, this older woman in Cortez who knew Grandma well, use to do these food storage, and cooking classes for all the young girls who were newly married and I remember feeling very proud when she would always mention “Frankie Goff taught me this” Connie learned everything she knew from my grandma! It was a good feeling! I use to get a kick out of how frugal grandma was all the time with her canning and food storage. I remember her calling around to everyone she knew who had any kind of fruit trees, asking if she could come and pick up the fruit off the ground so she could can it!
She always had chickens and ducks, and I'll never forget the day when Heather and I were at her house and she told us to come in the house and wait by the door for a minute because she was going to have a job for us, so we waited, looking out the screen door, next thing we knew grandma had grabbed a duck she bought, and she had an axe in her hand, we stood there watching and wondering what she was doing, next thing we knew she grabbed the ducks neck pulled it against this old stump in her yard and she chopped its head off! WE were completely shocked! We had no idea that, is what she was going to do! Then to top it off she made us pluck all the feathers out! That was the job she had for us! I'll never forget that day! I can still see the duck running around with its head cut off!
Grandma use to love going yard selling! I remember many times, when Heather and I went to yard sales all day, on many Fridays and Saturdays! I always use to look forward to going yard selling, it was the funnest thing ever! I learned from Grandma, that you don't have to be rich with lots of money to buy cool things you like! Just shop at thrift stores and yard sales. Even today, I would rather go digging through an old shed some where, or go to the thrift store and find good deals then to go shopping at the mall!
When Heather and I were little, my grandma had this little wood cabinet and she filled it up with play glass dishes. They were little plates and little cups just our size. Oh how we loved those beautiful little glass plates and dishes she allowed us to play with. I think what she had done was, she bought all these little teacup plates, or dessert plates, and they were so cute and little just our size, we would put real food and drink in them and play all day with them and since they were glass we thought we were so big! She also had this old launderette that was made with beautiful fabrics, I think she found those at yard sales too, and we use to dress up in them all the time! We didn't know that they were basicly old underwear!
One of my favorite things at my grandmas house was her glass cabinet! She had this cabinet with glass doors and she had everything from little salt and pepper shakers to glass dishes and unique colored glass bottles. Oh how we loved looking at all the beautiful things she had collected over the years. Her glass cabinet was one of her prized possessions. I looked forward to going to her house so I could look at all her cute little pretty things. Sometimes she would let us clean everything out of it, and dust everything then put it back! We loved to do that!
My grandma use to trade with all the Native Americans in our community they would give her hand made things and she would trade them for doing embroidery work on their indian shawls! She just loved all the Native Americans. She talked about them all the time, she thought they were so beautiful. She had a bunch of really old pictures of them that she enjoyed dying with colors since the pictures were black and white. Grandma Goff taught me to find the beauty in everything around me! She loved planting flower and vegetable gardens. Even as she got older she loved to plant her gardens. She use to paint all the time too! I remember her taking us to all kinds of weird places and she would set her little easel up and paint. I remember going to the side of the road somewhere, where she had a good view of the Ute Mountain so she could paint it. I use to love watching her paint, and she loved painting more than anything! We have lots of artists in our family, and its probably because of her influence.
I'll never forget the times she made my dad pull over to the side of the road on the way to Salt Lake City so she could collect different colors of sand. The whole way we would stop every time there was a different color of sand. We would have buckets of different colors of sand that she would either sell or trade to the Native Americans for their sand paintings! She use to appreciate the beauty of the earth around us. I remember driving through the desert and she would find the tiniest red or purple flowers out in the desert in the middle of no where, and she would talk the whole way about how beautiful they were. Now when I drive up to the mountains, or through the desert I can spot the most beautiful flower in the middle of nowhere, because she taught me how to notice those things!
As Grandma got older and she started living in Madison House she told my mom one day that she liked to make people laugh! She said it was her calling to make people who lived around her laugh! One way of doing this was she loved handing out candy to everyone she could. For the longest time she kept asking for huge bags of hard candy! SO we kept bringing it to her, we actually started getting worried when she had gone through one huge bag of candy in one week and was already asking for another one, Lucielle called my dad and said I think we need to get her checked for diabetes because we couldn't figure out why she was eating a huge bag of candy all in one week. Then we found out that what she was actually doing was wondering the halls handing candy out to everyone! She lived to make people laugh and to make people smile! I went to visit her in the nursing home 2 weeks ago, and she talked and talked, still trying to give candy to the kids! When I left I asked her what she wanted us to bring to her when we came back and as she laughed with a twinkle in her eye she said a Feller! Bring me a Feller!
Grandma brought so much joy and laughter to all of us, she will be missed, but I am thankful that she is now with her feller in heaven! I know we will all see her again one day! Her and her feller!
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