Happy Birthday Grandma

Today would have been my grandmother's birthday. It's been over a year since she went on to her reward, but who she was continues to be ingrained into the fabric of my life today. I know I have mentioned at least once if not more my greatest memory of her. That will always be her smiling face waiting for me at the breakfast table. As a child you never really think about the life that was before you. Everything you know about a person seems to inherently be the way they have always been. As I get older I think about my own life before and after children. I realize how much life my grandmother lived even before I was even a thought in anyone's mind. I think about the trials and tribulations she faced raising her own children, living on modest means, running a small town business with my grandfather. Even though no metaphorical ship ever came in for them she lived her life with a joy few ever really know.
I miss her today. On mornings that feel particularly rough there is almost nothing I wouldn't give to walk down the hallway of her house, led by the most irresistible smell of bacon and see her sitting at that breakfast table ready to talk to me and make me feel like the most important person in the world.
Even though that is no longer possible in this life, the reminder of a woman tested by time, marked with joy, a lover of God, gives me encouragement to live my life in the same manner.