Tribute to Grandma Ethel Winger

My brother and I were talking on the way to Uncle Francis and Auntie Elaine’s farm the other night and both of us thought of the empty rocking chair, where Grandma used to sit when she came out to the farm, and how we would miss her presence there.  When our whole family would get together, from there she could watch her great-grandchildren play and run around and talk to her sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren.  I remember Grandma having lots of pictures of her family around her apartment to remember us by and that she loved to hear what we were all up to.

I remember Grandma getting up from the rocking chair to play Crokinole and Uno with us as we sat around playing games at Christmas time.

There was always plenty of good-natured teasing with Uncle Francis, my Dad, my cousin Frank and my brother Jeff around.  One characteristic of Grandma that I love is although she was a quiet and soft-spoken lady, she always had this twinkle in her eye and a great sense of humour and would come up with these witty “come-backs” to put them all in their place.

Grandma was always a presence in my family, even though we lived far away and would usually see her only once a year at the most.  We would talk to her on the phone once a week and keep in touch that way.  I remember the excitement of arriving at her Ridgeway apartment and climbing up the stairs to find her door and seeing her smiling face on the other side.

From High School on, when I lived out west, I didn’t see Grandma as often; usually only once every 2 years.  From these few visits, I have some wonderful memories of Grandma.  One year, I was out visiting by myself and spent a couple days with Grandma.  That year she got out a big suitcase full of pictures from the past, from her parents’ generation to her great-grandchildren, and as we looked through the pictures and she told me about the ones I didn’t recognize, it was like a journey through the family’s history and I learned so much.  That same day I started asking Grandma questions about her life and she related many of the significant times in her life, including meeting and marrying her husband, raising her 2 sons, and losing her husband at around age 50.  It was like a window into the joys and struggles of her life and helped me to understand her better.

One year, I think it was 1992, when Grandma’s whole family was together for Christmas at the farm, the kids put on a little program of singing carols and narrating the Christmas story and then Grandma wanted to recite us a poem.  As I recall, the poem was called “She’s Somebody’s Mother” and was about a young boy helping an elderly lady to cross the street or carrying some heavy bags for her, because he thought about the fact that this lady was somebody’s mother and he would want to help his own mother in the same way.  I’ll never forget the picture in my mind of Grandma standing there, straight and tall, reciting this poem from memory that she had probably learned as a child.  It had the effect on me that I think she meant it to, to remember and respect the life of an elderly person and think about the fact that she has been a daughter, a mother, a sister, a friend and has gained a lot of experience and wisdom in the process.

In conclusion, I’d like to read a few verses from 1 Corinthians 15: 42-29 that I came across this morning:

“The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.  And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.”