Grandma

I briefly tossed in the passing away of my Grandmother a few weeks ago. She deserves a lot better acknowledgement than that! Verena Ursenbach Hatch was an incredible woman! You can find her obituary here, but even that can not fully describe how truly incredible of a woman she was. I feel ashamed for never having gotten to know her better. Isn't that how it always is... and I always blamed most of it on the fact that she was born in the 20's and I in the 90's. I am the youngest of 34 grandchildren and I always knew my grandma to be an old.... well... slightly bitter difficult individual. I always knew that she was very sincere, and gentle, and a wonderful homemaker. She was dedicated in all of her church callings and she had one of the strongest testimonies I've ever been blessed to hear. But when it came down to it, going to grandma's meant an 8 hour drive, a whole lot of sitting around doing nothing, eating the most bizzarre foods (and ANYONE can attest to that!), getting lectured on random topics, and then a final 8 hour drive back home. What I didn't realize until I was older, and even more so in the past few weeks, was that the Verena that I grew up knowing was in fact nothing like the real Verena. The small amount of time that I spent with her, in comparison to her 90 years diligently serving and blessing the lives of those around her, were almost nothing but a few seconds. I never really got to know her.

When I flew to Utah to attend her funeral the first thing I did was visit my Grandpa. He's residing at an assisted living home where they both had been for most of this past year. I had never been there before, and my mom and I decided to surprise him with a visit! We got there early in the morning and I went and sat down at the breakfast table right next to him. My goodness.... he was so thrilled! I adore my grandpa. I had such a wonderful time visiting with him that whole weekend. He never ceases to impress me. He was going through old photos to pick a few for the service and shared some of them with me!

The folder was titled "Verena 1922-2012". I copied everything onto my own computer and then quickly compiled them to make a slideshow for the luncheon the next day. Unfortunately we never actually used the slideshow; there was a FULL table of memory books and pictures already! Going through these photos showed my grandma in a whole new life that I never knew. I already feel that I know her better. I have, and always have had, an immense respect for her. She is a beautiful woman, and I cannot wait to see her again! She has so much more to teach me, I just know it!