Showing posts with label grandma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grandma. Show all posts

Day of the Dead and thinking of family

This past week we celebrated the Mexican tradition of the day of the dead. I love this holiday.  It is a day when our loved ones that have died get to come back enjoy the pleasures of earth for a day.  Those of us that our alive set up altars and clean gravestones and have a big party with all of the favorite foods and drinks of our loved ones. 

This was my first year setting up an altar.  We gathered some stuff from around the house and created a very nice space.  We put some flowers from our garden which my grandpa Jim would have loved.  He was a big gardener.  We put out some candles and that created a beautiful light in the evening.  We set out some limes for some color and a photo of my grandparents.  It was really nice.  You usually set out some favorite foods so we put out a cup of coffee for my grandma.  You might remember my visits with my grandma like this one. http://rosas-standring.blogspot.com/2009/04/visit-with-my-grandma.html .  She was very special to me and I to her.  We would sit for many hours and drink coffee and she would gossip about her neighbors.  She also loved to drink wine.  It was horrible wine- but whatever.  It was that bottle of Chablis with the tiny loop handle.  But hey.  I put out a little wine for her.  For my grandpa I put out a snickers bar and a shot of vodka. 
My grandpa loved snickers so much that he was buried with 1 in his shirt pocket. haha.  In his younger days my grandpa was regrettably an alcoholic and did not always act the best.  By the time that my and m brothers came around he had not had a drink in many years.  But he always had a glass of diet 7up.  That was his deterrent to drinking and it totally worked.  I remember my grandpa as being a fun and wonderful man.  He was always with us when we would go water skiing.  The first run of the day was at 8 so we had to be in the boat at 7:30 so the 1st skier could be in the water ready to hit is at 8- so you get the best water.  Grandpa was on that and every other run for the whole day.  So I figured that since he did such a great job of controlling his addiction when he was alive- that this was his chance to enjoy it for a day. 

My great grandpa Willet loved to grow tomatoes and cantaloupes.  He was always so proud of them and he did grow huge tomatoes.  This was always a little funny because he did so in a trailer park.  But they were great.  It is a well known fact and joke about grandpa greats love obsession with tomatoes.  So I also put out some tomatoes. 

Ruben unfortunately does not have any photos of his family that has past.  he did however get to be in Guanajuato when his grandfather was within hours of passing and that was really special to him.  He had not been back to Mexico in almost 12 years so it was remarkable that he was there at that time.

Dia de los Muertos is such a happy occasion.  I sort of think of it as Thanksgiving for the dead.  A time when everyone gets together and enjoys their families.  That is why you see so many of the skeletons with festive cloths and bright colors.  We are all here for a party- dead or alive.  Ruben is getting a beautiful tattoo that has the front gate of the cemetery in his town with a party going on just behind all with day of the dead figures. I think that it is going to be really amazing.

I did get my tattoo on my back touched up.  It was a little light and now it is much stronger.  It looks really good.  I am so glad that my friend is doing my tattoos as an exchange.  There is certainly not enough money for something like tattoos but luckily our website provides us with a good exchange opportunity.  Olmo is also adding some green to my back tattoo that has my kids names- well the initials and 4 roses for "Rosas" which means roses in Spanish.  He is also doing a sweet little arm band that will be nice and delicate but the one I am most excited about is my owl.

The owl was my grandma's animal.  It was her symbol for her sorority and was part of her life forever.  She was always given owl oriented gifts and loved owl decorations.  I am getting an owl on my left foot.  My grandma is one of the people that showed me that your strongest foot might not always lead you down the right path.  Sometimes things are supposed to be hard.  The other person who taught me this is my momma.  But I am not sure what tattoo to get for her.  haha. 

The morning after the Day of the dead I could feel the presence of my grandma and felt a wonderful energy in the house.  The weather in Tulum has changed and the nights are getting cool.  There was a breakout of pink eye at Ruben's hotel so we are all at home with it.  Through the night- I had to keep getting up to help the kids with their eyes.  It is finally cold enough that not only do we not need our fan but I can put on my grandma's robe.  I love that.  It makes me feel like she is hugging me.  And there are 2 other people that make me feel that good when they hug me- Ruben and my momma. 

 Anyway... Happy Day of the Dead everyone- a little late but whatever.  We have all come down with Pinkeye so we have not been doing much lately.  Just sitting watching movies- well listening to movies more like. 

Posted at 11/06/2010 03:25:00 PM | Labels: , , | 3 Comments  

My tattoo


Well, I finally got most of my tattoo. I have been planning this tattoo for several years and I have really been excited about getting it. After getting my first tattoo in Spokane when I was 18- Remember that Brian?!?! It was so funny - now looking back anyway. I was barely 18 and I wanted a tattoo. I picked the Eye of Horus from the Egyptian mythological story about family devotion and sacrifice. It is a beautiful story of Isis and her husband Osiris. Osiris is killed by his brother Set, cut into 14 pieces and thrown into the Nile. Isis, the every devoted wife, collects all the pieces and because it is mythology- Osiris body awakened and they conceived a son, Horus. Horus avenged his fathers death and killed Set. But not before Set ripped out his eye. Horus went to the body of his father, put his eye into his body and Osiris was able to asend to the heavens to the gods. On a totally separate note it is also the mathematical symbol for fractions being made up of perfectly fractionated pieces (1/2-1/4-1/8-1/16-1/32-1/64)


But anyway... I digress. That was my first tattoo and I squealed like a stock pick at slaughter. It was not a pretty sight. The artist had to stop and tell me that there were other people waiting for their tattoo and that I really needed to calm down. jajaja oh well.


Well after having the memory of this pain more then washed away I was ready for my next tattoo. I was going to originally get peacock feathers in a sunburst shape that had hidden letters within them. Over the years it has developed and changed and has ended with this...

4 roses at the 4 corners of the universe (N-S-E-W): 4 people in my family- our last name Rosas- means roses in Spanish and on the Northern hemisphere is a K and an E for Kennedy Elena and on the southern side is A and E for Akilean Emilio. So in essence it is my kids names. I love it.

I still have the white to add to bring it alive and I might add some more color. I think that it is so beautiful. My good friend Olmo did a great job. I cannot wait for my next one. I did much better on the pain this time. I mean do not get me wrong. It hurt like crazy. But after 2 very painful c-section and even worse recoveries from them- and then there were the 4 surgeries that fooled the 18 months after that- so I was really hoping that 6 surgeries in 2 years was going to lessen my pain threshold. I do not know if it did - but I handled it fine. it was not until the 4th hour that I was done.

The other day we did a little test drive and one of my all time best friends in the world- Andi came down. I have a lot of updating to do for that trip - but I will tell you that we got matching little tattoos. For anyone from Oregon- you have probably already seen this symbol. It is the outline of Oregon with a little green heart in the middle. The sticker says on it... "something about you says Oregon." I think it is funny that so does my hip. On Halloween I met a girl from Oregon and we got to talking and it turned out that a friend of hers was the original designer for the sticker. Small world.


Long story short... I LOVE IT. I cannot wait to get my next one. My next one is a little outline of an owl. This is the symbol for my grandmother Pusey that just died recently. I will report more when I get it. And I will post pics one I have the white.

Posted at 11/24/2009 06:52:00 AM | Labels: , , | 10 Comments  

MIssing my grandmother

Ever since my grandma died this past Spring I have been going back and forth with my feelings about it. I mean, I guess that it is your normal grieving process but I flip all over the emotional spectrum like a bi-polar spaz. My religious and spiritual views tend much more to the Buddhist way of thinking which has always given me a greater sense of peace when death comes knocking. I do not fear death, I do not think it is by any means the end but I do feel a very selfish loss.

I am not sad for my grandmother's death. I know that the body she was in was no longer comfortable for her and was not allowing my INCREDABLY head strong and independent grandmother to be and do the things that she loved.

On one of my later trips - either right before I moved to Mexico or one of my trip back she was working on this beading project from this strange looking necklace she found at one of her favorite little cheap spots. (she had a small collection of stores she always found deals at!) Anyway... I digress...

When I was up at the service my sister-in-law Amme saw the bag of beading that my grandmother had been working on. - Sitting by her chair in the den (a room she had not been in a very long time because of the step that goes into it.) Amme thought of the idea of making a simple beaded bracelet for the great grand kids. I thought that it was a really beautiful idea. My kids love wearing their little wooden bead bracelets. They love knowing that it was grandma greats.


When I left my grandmothers house after the service I noticed that there was my grandmothers robe that she had bought a few months before from her (and mine) favorite consignment shop. When I visited her from Mexico I drove her all over to find new buttons to put on it. We finally found these beautiful star shaped turquoise jeweled start shaped buttons. The robe was hanging on the back of the door - buttons on and pinned waiting to be hemmed.

I asked if it would bother anyone if I took the robe because it made me think of grandma. As the only grand daughter I was sure it would not and I was able to take the robe home.

Well, yesterday the feeling of loss and missing my grandmother completely engulfed me. We have had some strong storms here lately and when I wake up in the morning --VERY VERY early-- it was actually a little cold. I put on my grandmas robe and could feel her eyes when she saw it for the first time. I can almost hear what she would have said about the color, the cute sleeves and the horrible buttons that she would have to change. I just got goose bumps. I used to have a friend that believed goose bumps were the spirits of those that you were thinking about at that moment. I could see it. But for me, I can feel my grandma when sudden wind blows in to the house, especially when I am baking.

I have my grandmother's very old hand mixer and every time I use it I picture her and her perfectly soft and delicate hands. I miss her a lot and I am so glad that there are things around me that I can feel my grandmother on. I can feel her wrapped around me.

Even wearing it now I can hear my grandma telling me that the sleeves are too long and that I need to hem them. She would then tell me that her when she was given her first sewing machine by her mother -in-law that if she only hemmed pants, that the machine would pay for itself. I heard that a lot from my grandma.

I miss her. But I am lucky that I can feel her.

Posted at 9/04/2009 07:06:00 AM | Labels: , | 3 Comments  

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