Maxine. Obsessed.

About 1 year ago, Makayla began talking about my mommy's mommy (my mom's mom, my grandma).

And when I say "talking" I mean "obsessing".

For a year now, 

Makayla prays for her,

draws pictures of her,

and talks about her routinely.

My grandma has been gone for over 10 years now.
Makayla has never met her, I don't have framed pictures of her around the house (but thinking about changing that), and she's rarely brought up in conversation.

I do not know what brought about this obsession.

Makayla prays for her at home, school, and church.  Throughout the year, we've had notes sent home to us saying that "Makayla prayed for her mommy's grandma today".

She will randomly draw pictures of  her - pictures of her laying in bed, pictures of her in a field of flowers...

Whenever someone passes away, Makayla will let us know that he or she is probably up in heaven playing cards with Maxine.

It's kind of creepy.

About a month ago, I decided I'd show Makayla a couple of pictures I had of my grandma...because up until this point, Makayla had never even seen a picture of her.
(why i find it even more strange to have an obsession over someone she has never seen before).

All Makayla could say when looking at these pictures was

"Awwww, look at her cute blonde hair!!"

Well, tonight the kids and I started an adventure.
We chased a rainbow.
We were trying to get to the end of it and while the kids were having a blast and falling into the magic of it all, I started to get bored of it after about 30 minutes.

Driving through the country, we passed a cemetery and it jogged my memory of a conversation we had with Makayla a few weeks ago.

A few weeks ago, as we drove past a cemetery, Makayla asked if that was Maxine's cemetery (yet, just another strange - out of the blue - conversation about Maxine with Makayla)...so, remembering her being inquisitive about where Maxine was buried, I got the idea of taking her out to my grandma's grave.

Makayla was excited!

Upon seeing her grave Makayla got sad and said "awwwww, poor maxine".  She said she was sad and felt bad for Maxine because she passed away.

I told her not to be sad because Maxine is in Heaven!!  There's no better place than Heaven and she is SO happy right now.

Makayla wanted to "bury her body up".  I told her we couldn't dig her up...that she's buried super deep and all we would find are bones.  Her bones are here, but here spirit is up in Heaven with Jesus.
(thank goodness she didn't ask me what 'spirit' was)

Then she wanted to know who carried her body here (to her grave) and I told her that big strong men did.

She had good questions and I couldn't believe I was actually having this conversation with my 5 year old daughter who was SO intrigued and SO happy to be talking about Maxine and to finally be seeing where she was buried.

While walking around the cemetery, Makayla wanted to know how my grandma died.  

My grandma surprisingly died in her sleep one night at home so no one really knows why she died, but I told Makayla that she died of a broken heart because that's what I truly believe.

My grandma died a couple years after my grandpa's death and without having any known sickness or health issues, I believe that she missed my grandpa too much to live on.  I like to think that he came in the night and took her up to Heaven with him.

But...of course, Makayla asked me how her heart broke, which led into conversation about my grandpa, what his name was (weldon), how he died (sick lungs), and how much my grandma loved him.

It got deep.

I was trying to think of a way to get to the shallow end when all of sudden Makayla threw her arms up in the air and got terribly upset because there were not flowers on Maxine's grave!!

  

Man, that girl!! - she's always amazing me.

I made a promise on the way back to the car that we would get flowers and bring them back to Maxine's grave soon.

I know Makayla won't forget...

Thank you, Makayla, for making me miss my grandma more than I ever have...

 and thank you for bringing her to my thoughts almost daily.  

Thank you for forcing me to speak her name and to remember life with her.