This is my Grandma Charlotte in 1968. Eleven years earlier, when she was still in high school, she got pregnant with my mom. Two years later, she had my uncle. When she was 22, their father left and she became a single mother.
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Their lives were hard but she never gave up and she sure as hell didn’t let anyone tell her what to do or how to be. Her laugh was raucous. She drank beer and smoked cigarettes and swore. She made a dinner called “Shit on a Shingle.” She skipped in grocery store parking lots.
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When I was a girl, she took long brisk walks every night, swinging her arms Richard Simmons-style, listening to marching band music on her Walkman.
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She made strawberry daiquiris and danced the jitterbug with her son in their tiny living room.
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She probably cried, but I never saw her do it.
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It has been almost 20 years since she died, too early, in January 1998.
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I miss you, Grammy. I wish you were still here to join in on our dance parties. You would have loved them.
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~shared by @whimseycraft_