My grandma, Maxine Kercher Loback, passed away on May 6, 2024. Her health had been poor for years and extremely poor for several months. She's a fighter, and we were surprised she hung on for as long as she did! Breezy and I flew out for the funeral. I have wonderful friends who watched Isaac for me, and Aaron was able to juggle the kids while working from home after school. I'm so grateful that I was able to be there for this experience with my family.
It's difficult to know what to write about Grammy. I have great memories of her from early childhood. She was a fixture at holidays, and I loved having sleepovers at her house. However, she struggled with mental health issues that got worse as she got older. She had a very strained relationship with her three daughters, including my mom. Even though she lived 20 minutes away, we didn't see her for about 10 years. Remarkably, 16 year old Breezy was the one to break down those walls and regain contact with her. My mom followed suit and provided herculean service for her over many years. Breezy asked me to take over the role of calling her every Sunday night when she left on her mission. I begrudgingly took her challenge, and it ended up being a very meaningful thing in my life. I developed a relationship as an adult with Grammy through those Sunday night phone calls. She was fun to talk to - she thought that every story I told was amazing and that my kids are destined to be future presidents or apostles. I kept going after Breezy came home and called every week until Grammy got moved to the skilled nursing facility.
Our four generations of women picture! This was Dec 2017, 6.5 years before she passed away.
Breezy gave the most wonderful eulogy at the funeral. She had everyone in tears.
I uploaded the eulogy as well as other stories to family search: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/memories/LXX5-QZC
It was also sweet to see the outpouring of service to my mom. Grammy had been very cut off for a long time, and not many people knew her. We thought that the funeral would be a small service with just family present, but we ended up packing a relief society room and having a lovely luncheon. Most people there were there to support my mom.
Grammy was a gift giver. Her condo was full of gifts she had purchased on QVC for birthday presents for various people that she never got around to actually sending. She would have loved seeing the scene of her daughters and granddaughters going through her jewelry collection. Uncle Troy made it so fun - he assigned us a draft order, had a pre-viewing event, and then made it almost like a game show where we took turns picking out treasures for our inheritance. I got some earrings and necklaces that I love, and a few things for Annie. It was sweet that for the next few days so many of her descendants were together wearing jewelry she had collected.
The next morning, Uncle Troy, my cousin Brynlee, and I decided to tour DC for the morning before meeting up with the rest of the family for Mother's Day Brunch. We planned on going to the Ford Theatre right next to the restaurant, but tickets were sold out. We ended up cutting through museums to get a whirlwind tour of the city and made it all the way to the Washington monument! It was quite a workout for my pregnant self. One cool thing is that while cutting through the museum of art, we stumbled across a Monet that they had a copy of in their house growing up.
There's my hand touching the Washington Monument
Our very fancy Mother's Day Brunch! We ordered the "Taste of the South" for the table. It had very fancy deviled eggs, fried green tomatoes, chicken and waffles, and collard greens. Foods that I wouldn't have thought could be made fancy but boy were they ever!
I landed late on Saturday after my kids were in bed. I got to see them for the first time when they brought me my mother's day breakfast in bed the next morning. I savored that breakfast and hugged those kids extra close.
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