My grandma

Doris Lucille Gay went to be with the Lord on 19, September 2011. That is the main reason that i have not been blogging lately. The little bugs and i just got back from driving to and from California for "Gram's" funeral. i found out that it is 2,000 miles from my front door to my sister's. With the Lord's help, i made it in 3 days.

Gram was a wonderful woman. She had a hard life, but, she was an over-comer. She was so funny and bright; a joy to be around. She snorted when she got to laughing really hard. That is one of the things that i inherited from her. She collected shot glasses, she hated washing dishes, she loved reading and she played the piano by ear. Her favorites were the tunes from the Big Band Era, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, and the like. She and Gramps had a song of their own, "Sentimental Journey" by Les Brown and his orchestra. For Christmas every year, she would play "Silver Bells" for me. It is my favorite secular Christmas tune. i think i liked it best because she would play it just for me. :) When she would mess up while playing, she would get so frustrated with herself! She and my grandfather were married just 20 days shy of 60 years. Gramps passed away on December 3, 2005. Their anniversary would have been the 23rd.

When Gram was 18, she married my Grandpa. They had a baby boy the following year. Dennis Allen Gay was his name. He died of cancer the following year, right before my mom was born. Neither of them ever got over it. Gram said that if my mom hadn't been born right after losing Denny, she thinks she would have died. The picture above is the 3 of them when Denny was about 9 months old.

When Gram was 21, she was horribly burned in a gas stove accident. My mom was three at the time, and remembers it to this day. Gram had been cooking over the gas stove, she was wearing one of Gramp's flannel shirts as a jacket. When she reached up to get a spice over the stove, the shirt caught on fire. She had third degree burns up her side, under her arm and down her back. Thankfully a neighbor heard her screams and came to help. Gram was in the hospital for almost a year.

My Grandpa was an alcoholic. He could be mean when he had been drinking. Thankfully, he gave that up when i was still a kid. He was hard to live with when he was young, and wasn't a Christian. He blamed God for Denny's death. Gram was a Christian, albeit a timid one, and she clung to her faith throughout those trying years.

They moved around a lot. Sometimes the places were wonderful, like Lake Tahoe. Sometimes, they were awful, like Blythe, California, where Gramps worked for the Border Inspection station. They met in Redlands, and were married at the Astesticia, an old Spanish mission in town. They ended up have 2 other daughters, each 5 years apart.
There is so much more i could say about my Gram, but, you still wouldn't understand what an amazing woman she was. She went into the hospital in early February, for double pneumonia, and never recovered. i miss her a lot. It blesses me immensely to know that they are ALL in heaven together now. Gram, Gramps, (who became a Christian 3 months before he died) and their baby Denny; together again, forever. i can hardly wait to see them again!

Thanks for reading!
Alycia