Goodbye Grandma James

My grandmother passed away the 27th of September, 2018. She had suffered a stroke shortly after we last visited in Thanksgiving of 2017, but she was in relatively good health up until two weeks before her passing. She went on some painkillers to alleviate her complaint of leg pain, and my uncle found her barely responsive one day. The medicine is believed to have caused seizures, and she was sedated in the hospital. She only roused once during her stay at the hospital, while my cousin Becca was with her. She died in her sleep with family close at hand.

The silver lining to the situation was the family had cause to all come together. Such a gathering hadn't happened many years, where all but a couple of spouses and cousins on missions were able to attend Grandma's funeral. Due to a backlog at Ft Sam Houston, she wasn't buried until 12 October 2018.

Viewing was held at Porter-Loring North on 11 October 2018. Not a lot of attendance, but there was a very nice slideshow of pictures on presentation. At Grandma's request, the casket was closed.

Flying with a child between 1 and 2 years old is easy.

Waiting for bags at San Antonio

Koda and John meet. Krystal looks on as Eric does his kid act.

Chicken head at Target.

Chaos at Eric and Krystal's home

L to R: Aunt Tammy, her daughter Erin, her daughter Becca and husband Scott

Children of Aunt and Uncle KB and Kim, L to R: Kendelle, Corey, Erin. In front is Erin's daughter Charlotte

Immediate family of Frank and Valerie James, L to R: Felicia (my mom), Uncle KB, Great Aunt Patty, Aunt Tammy, and Uncle Kevin

Family of Patty Birkinshaw Wood, my great aunt, L to R: Chris Wood (Patty's son), Patty, Jenica (Chris's daughter), Julie (Chris's wife), Stacey (Patty's daughter)

 The services were held at Grandma's church building. We had a procession with police escort to the cemetery at Ft Sam Houston, which we barely made it into due to a last minute Whataburger run. We had an aggressive Dodge try and break into our procession and hopefully felt ashamed for throwing off our groove. And also, we lost track of the rental key with all the loadings and unloadings. Alison spotted it at last in the trunk--it fell in while getting out Tommy's stroller. We were only delayed 10ish minutes.

We arrived on a Wednesday, had the viewing on Thursday, and the services and interment on Friday. It doesn't sound like a lot on paper, but it was pretty tiring. I only managed this shot of the old James home in Windcrest late at night on Friday.

Apparently, unknown to me, Grandma had a preferred dining establishment in town, called Chester's. I had never been there. We always went to Fuddruckers. Nonetheless, we went to Chester's for lunch on Saturday, before we returned home to California.

A brief walk just before the rain hit

John Wayne and John Reese at the Santa Ana airport

Life moves on. We hope to see Grandma again when we pass on...hopefully not too soon.

We made an impromptu ice cream stop in Glendora Village on a hot summer afternoon.

John somehow fell asleep on a Sunday afternoon.

I became a videographer for a friend's 30th birthday party (sorry friends...I still need to do something with the video)!

The appearance of a box makes for hijinks.

I braved the Cal Poly Pomona Pumpkin-palooza. Alison was out with friends, so I went with Rob and Michelle and kids.

After returning home from San Antonio, we had high winds in the area. Trees and branches were downed all over, including power lines. We lost power around 11:30 AM and didn't get it back until after 7 PM. I had to go pick up John from preschool because they had no power, and of course I happened to be driving Alison's car, which didn't have a house key attached. No power = no access to the house, so I had to drive all the way to her school to take her house key to get in.

Grandma Debby was in town for one day, so we got to eat in the Buca di Beppo Pope Room in Pasadena. John did not like the Pope's eyes, so we had to be careful when passing around food on the lazy susan upon which the waxen pontiff sat.

We took the rare occasion to go out. Pasadena is a great place to visit as long as you don't have to drive there. Fortunately we have an excellent light rail right by our house. Downtown Pasadena is extremely walkable. We tried out this excellent dim sum house, Lunasia. I was very impressed, and any time you can eat out for two under $40 is a win. We saw First Man afterward, which is an excellent movie about Neil Armstrong, and don't let weird political criticism keep you away.