This post is more for me than anything. I received news today that my great grandmother, Kathryn King (better known to me as Greatie), has passed away. She was 107 years old. Despite knowing this has been coming and knowing she has lived a full and wonderful life, it is still sad for me. I know she was ready to go but that doesn't make it any easier to lose a part of your life. So I decided to write this to remind myself how blessed I was to be her great granddaughter.
First, the pictures. The top is a family picture at Rydal Park (her home). I would guess I am about 2 or 3. The left picture is at the Reimert Bird Haven (Greatie's maiden name was Reimert). The last on the right was when I was a sophomore in college. This was the last time I saw Greatie. She made me wear her sweater so I wouldn’t get cold—that always makes me smile.
Greatie was an amazing woman. She has some of the best stories and I got to hear a lot of them first hand. She was born in China when her father was a missionary. Her father was murdered during the Boxer Rebellion. She went to college in the 1920s when it was rare for women. She had a wonderful daughter who became my dad's mom (my grandmother who died when I was a baby). I loved listening to her tell me about my dad as a little boy or about her time growing up, especially stories of China. I loved hearing about her daughter, my grandmother, since I never knew her.
Greatie was such a loving person. So many of the workers at Rydal Park would go out of their way to tell us how nice and wonderful she was, even when her memory was failing her. She never said a bad word about anyone (I am not sure she ever had bad thoughts and definitely never expressed them). She always saw the best in people. I once told her I liked crossword puzzles and she used to always cut them out of the paper and save them for me. She would take so much joy in watching Zack and I play games, from card games to shuffleboard. She wrote the best cards for birthdays and Christmas that would remind us how much she loved us and how much she missed us. When we visited, she would show us off like we were a celebrity. She loved her family so much. She always had so many pictures of us on display in her small little room. She loved to watch Jeopardy and read books (sound familiar?). She was stubborn and, at times, didn’t like people to do things for her (she wanted to do it for herself). She loved to hold on to everything that had a memory (and maybe some other stuff).
How blessed am I? I got to have this wonderful lady in my life for 26 (almost 27) years and even better, she was my family.
This coming weekend I will be doing with my dad to Philly to celebrate her life. I know I will cry and I know it will not be easy, but I want to make sure I smile and celebrate the woman that was Kathryn Grace King. I will never forget her and she will live on in our memories. Please say a pray for her and for my family.
Random story: I wrote my college personal statement on this tree below. It was about how growing up was comparable to how the process of getting in the tree changed as I got older (how I originally was lifted by others and then as I got older, I had to start doing more on my own). The thing about this was this was always with Greatie at her nephew Phillip’s farm. She was always right there, supporting me and smiling back at me.
