Memorial Day 2013

For Memorial Day this year, I really wanted to go and visit all of our relative's graves. We started our trek that morning by visiting my brother at
Wasatch Lawn Memorial.
Such a beautiful cemetery.
For our second and third years of marriage, Chris and I lived up the street from this pretty place on 3300 S in Salt Lake.


Who knew that a few years later, my brother, just 30 years old, would end up here?


(this is just weeks before he passed away)

His smile, his sparkling green eyes, his confidence,
 his spunk, his determination, his drive, his soft heart.
My brother.
I miss him.


Next up, we visited my handsome Grandpa, "Papa".
We didn't have to go far.


He is buried right next to Michael.



Here he is with my cute Grandma, "Mimi" (who is still living).
I couldn't find a more current picture that is already scanned in, but honestly, he didn't change that much in his older years. He stayed super fit throughout his life, and I remember him on numerous occasions prodding me to punch  his super fit abs "as hard as I could", to show them off.  I remember his ritual of pinching my cheek and telling me I have a cute "mug" (face). He had pretty blue, friendly eyes and was kind and gentle. I also remember that he had to always wear his "house slippers", and didn't like us to go bare feet.
He had Parkinson's Disease and tragically passed away after falling down the stairs when I was 15.

Next up, we walked further down in the same cemetery to find my Great-Grandparent's grave, Nana and Gramps - Mimi's parents.

(Here they are holding my older brother, Michael, in 1978)
I remember that my Great Grandpa was a boxer, and I remember a little workshop he had out in the garage. He also smoked, and liked to smoke pipes if I remember right. He had piercing blue eyes. He survived a house fire. He passed away when I was six.
My Great Grandma had red hair and was a good cook and a great decorator, like my Grandma Mimi. Their home on the East end of 3900 S was fairly humble, but decorated pretty fancy on the inside.
Flashback to the 80's...I remember that they always had Lay's potato chips for us to munch on and that my brother and I would go upstairs to the TV room on our Sunday night visits there to watch the Disney Family movie of the night that was featured on TV. I remember that the one car they owned was this looong olive green car. A Cadillac maybe? I don't think Nana ever got her drivers license.
They only had one child, my Grandma, Faye, or was we call her, "Mimi".

I was excited to recognize other names on headstones close to theirs...


George and Florence are Nana's parents, and Betty and Earl are Nana's siblings. Earl had a twin sister...and that's all I know about them.

Next up, we headed further North to the Salt Lake City Cemetery. My Mom grew up across the street from this cemetery, on "T" Street, in the Avenues. We visited her parents, my Grandma and Grandpa.

 
I have lots of fun memories with my Grandma and Grandpa. We spent endless hours playing Skip-Bo, Rummikub, and Rummy. They had a big yard, an awesome garden and we loved to pick cherries and climb and swing around in the cherry tree. My only girl cousin would fly out from CA and we would have sleepovers for weeks in the summer at Grandma and Grandpa's house. We loved to sleep in the "front room" in our maroon sleeping bags. A&W Rootbeer, the "Little Store" on the corner as we called it, chocolate pudding, the yummiest Thanksgiving dinners, and rollerskating around their huge driveway all remind me of Grandma and Grandpa's house. I remember my Grandma's loud, but pretty singing voice at church and how she always had a peppermint tic tac to pass us from her dainty white church purse to keep us quiet. I remember how my cute Grandpa wore black rimmed glasses for reading, could likely be found reclining in his beige chair, and always had a butterscotch or peppermint candies in his pocket to share. My Grandma was very active and would get up early in the morning to go on big walks with her friends around the neighborhood. My Grandpa loved to golf and drink coffee - which he gave up in his seventies (eighties?) so that he could be sealed to my Grandma in the temple. He was such a tender hearted man and absolutely adored my Grandmother. He passed away when I was in 6th Grade, my Grandma passed away when I was barely 16 after a painful, fast moving bout of pancreatic cancer. Since things weren't digital back then, I don't have pictures of them scanned into my computer... I will have to add some later.

Next up, we were off to Midway, Utah to visit sweet Grandpa Lonczyna, who passed away in his nineties just last November.


Midway, Utah
Chris' grandparents lived here in Midway for over 30 years. Their house can be seen in this picture up on the hill there. Chris loved to go tubing here in the winter, fishing with his Grandpa, & has good memories hiking Bergy Hill.




What a pretty headstone!

I love this cute man! I was honored & blessed to know him for 12 years of my life. I couldn't always make out everything he said in that Ukranian accent of his, but nonetheless I loved to listen to his stories about life and his work in the grocery business. He was strong-willed and opinionated, but sweet, kind and purposeful. I think that he and my Grandpa Westwood probably get along great in Heaven...they have a lot in common. :) We sure miss him! How lucky he was to live such a full and well rounded life, and we are blessed to have had him for so many years.
Here he is holding Emmie at Brett and Bethany's wedding.

As our day of honoring these amazing family members came to a close, we had one final, very important member to pay our respects to, and that is precious Atticus. We talked about our sweet Angel Atticus and how much he means to us as we released some balloons into the beautiful Midway clouds in his honor.

 

Oh how we miss this cute little boy!

Words can't express how much this little four year old has touched our life. How much we miss him. How much we love him and adore him. How brave we think he is. How much our hearts ache that our kids don't get to grow up with their amazing cousin. How much we miss those gorgeous, sparkling blue eyes. How much we miss his witty comebacks and larger than life personality. How much our hearts ache for the excruciating pain and sadness his parents have to endure as a result of losing their child. It's so awful. There's just no way around it. His earthly time was far too short, yet his spirit was so far reaching you couldn't walk into the room without feeling how special he was. We are so blessed to have this chosen little spirit in our very own family. I'm grateful to know that he is still and will forever be an active part of our family. I know that his valiant little spirit is there giving us strength and cheering us on and helping us all in ways we can't comprehend.  

We love you Buddy!!!