2004-09-16 - Granny Hazel J. Day was a very special person in my life. To me she was known as Granny, she took care of me in my childhood years while my Mom was busy working one of her many jobs she needed to work to support us. She always had many stories to tell, some funny, some sad and many that where bad enough to be quite shocking. Some of my clearest memories from my grade school years where hanging out at Grannies apartment in Albany Oregon waiting for my Dad to come pick me up for visitation time, to which he was usually very late. She was always full of ideas on games to play and normal every day things to use as toys, such as empty toilet paper rolls and string which where frequently used to make elaborate slides, tunnels and fortresses that where just the right size for GI Joes and some of the smaller Transformers. She was born in 1911 and living during the depression taught her a lot about making things go a long way and reusing anything that could be reused. One time just before first grade she let me use almost all of her sheets, clotheslines and other random household items to build a huge indoor tent/fortress type thing that spanned the entire length and breadth of the trailer that she lived in for many years in Lebanon Oregon, and then she left it up for me to play in for a day or two, even though much of it was way, way too small for her to walk through. The last 15 years of her life got increasingly harder, watching some one you love who was once so full of life, slowly slow down is tough. It started abruptly when I was in 7th grade after her sister died she started complaining about her heart doing weird things and spending a lot of time just sitting in her chair, at that point her, my mom and myself all lived in a fifth wheel travel trailer across from the 260 café in Payson Arizona. Less then a year later we moved to Bend Oregon where she was much happier and got out of our travel trailer and into her own apartment which was good for all of us, it would have been better if we could have all moved out of the trailer, but that’s another story. Shortly there after she got Glaucoma and lost enough of her eye site so that she could no long drive and needed a magnifying glass to read and write. Having freedom to drive and go where she wanted when she wanted and reading books and letters where two of her favorite things and watching her adapt to not being able to really do either of these well any longer was quite rough. But of course she fought through it and went on with life. Things got harder yet in the last few years, after she broke her hip and she refused to do her physical therapy stuff, she just wanted to sit in her chair, and thus lost the majority of her mobility and her body slowly deteriorated, she just didn’t really have anything left to do here in this world, no real reason to go on other then to watch her grand kids and their kids grow up. However the majority of her descendents did not keep in very good touch with her and this made her sad often. I always felt that I didn’t call or visit her nearly enough, but apparently I was one the most frequent ones, which doesn’t make me too happy with many of my relatives, but I’m sure they had their reasons such as being too busy trying to inbreed and collect welfare. Ever since the first time I considered having children of my own I had always really wanted my kids to get to know her, and now that will never happen. That is probably the biggest regret of my life to date, both for the sake of my maybe someday children and for my little Granny. I was in Bend for her last birthday and she told me that she had been holding on till her birthday and that now that it was there she didn't know what would happen. Over these last couple weeks we knew that she did not have much time left and I almost canceled my plans to go to T-Town for collegiate track nationals so that I could go be with her and my mother, but she said she didn’t want me to fly up there, and I had already paid for the trip to T-Town and I thought maybe I would have time to do the race then fly up to be with her as well, I was wrong. If I had gone I probably would have arrived during her last night and not been able to spend time with her awake. At least I did get the chance to tell her I love her and good bye one last time over the phone a few days before she passed. The day before she passed my mom and her left a message on my voicemail and the last thing I got to hear her say was to tell my dog “Woof”, that's my granny joking around till the end. Granny, thank you for the part you played in my life.

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