Dear Maddie,
Today we went for a hike with the pups and Lindsey at the Overlook Trail in Dolores. It is a super pretty spring day with lots of flowers because we’ve been getting so much rain.
Today I also found out that my grandma Darlene Classen passed away. She passed away at home in her bed at 87 years old over the weekend. We think she just died in her sleep.
I am going to write about the last time I talked to her…. It was one week ago, the day after mother’s day. I called to say happy mothers day while I was taking care of you, Maddie. She had sent me a nice card to celebrate my first mothers day as a mom.
I called her and she picked up… the TV was loudly blaring in the background and she turned it off. She had me put the phone on speaker so she could talk to you. “Maddie, Maddie hi Maddie, I love you Maddie”, It was pretty cute and you were making some funny noises as well. I’m not quite sure if you realized that someone was talking to you on the phone but it sure was cute.
My grandma was always very sociable and told me about her mother’s day. Her sister Micky visited her on Saturday and on Sunday she got a visit from her favorite Mormon family that used to live across the street. She said she had an extra stuffed panda bear that she wanted to give to the family, but she couldn’t walk back to her bedroom quick enough to get it. She was obsessed with pandas because of her many visits to China.
I told her we were going to take you swimming soon.
“Well I taught Cindy how to swim when she was little. It was one of her very first memories, in her little green swimsuit. I would go in the water with her. I thought it was important to teach her how to swim because I never learned how to swim growing up. There was a pond at the summer camp I went to, but the water was always too cold. I like the warm water. Will learned how to swim at the crick in Kansas but I never did.
Did you know we are getting a Rec Center here in Grand Junction soon? It will be so nice, I like the warm walk pool so I can go walk around. It will be good for my back pain. I love the Rec Center in Durango, did you know that Cindy helped get that done?”
She asked about our plans to move to Durango and our new house. She was very excited for us that we would get to build a nice new house.
Your great-grandma Darlene worked as a nurse during her career. She was an OB nurse for a few years and had many stories about babies/deliveries. I talked to her on the phone quite a bit when I was pregnant with you. She told me I’d be fine during delivery and to “just squat and the baby will come out” hahaha.
It is so special that you got to meet your great grandma and she was able to be part of your lift for these first 5 months. She sure was a character, we will miss her. And she loved you very very much.
