My Grandma passed away yesterday, at age 94. I always liked this picture of her, which I took during a summer visit to North Carolina in 2007, the year before Grandpa passed away. You can see the sky and trees from her back porch (and me taking the photo) in the reflection.

But that picture doesn’t show as much of her warm spirit as is warranted, so I’ll submit this photo of us hand-churning ice cream (one of our favorite pastimes) with my cousin on my mom’s porch in the mid 1980s.

We always held Christmas Eve at her house, and those are fond memories as well, but I couldn’t find the photos of those times today. We would walk over from Mom’s house through the woods to Grandma and Grandpa’s house for Christmas Even dinner every year, then open family presents and walk back home, full of food and family stories, in the crisp Appalachian December darkness, illuminated only with our flashlights, the moon or stars.

For the first six years of my life, I was lucky enough to be the only grandchild, and after that, my parents and I lived on the hill adjacent to ours in rural North Carolina. Grandma didn’t have a job, which guaranteed that at any time from that point forward, I could expect to always have a gingerbread cookie and a bowl of hard candy waiting for me at her A-Frame house (shown below after they first moved in in the late 1970s). I would often stop by while riding my bike as a kid to talk to her as she worked in her garden.

Grandma loved hiking around in their 50-acre woodlands, and so did I, as an only child living out in the country. Here we are pictured on a hike that we and my parents took one day up to the top of a nearby mountain in the early 1980s.

Grandma came with us to the beach in North Carolina every Summer during my life until she couldn’t travel. The photo below was taken just after Grandpa passed in 2008, but my most vivid memories are from 25 years before that, of getting up early (we were the only two that would) and taking a walk on the beach to find seashells (which, as legend says, were much more plentiful back then).

Grandma’s passing didn’t come as a surprise, but that doesn’t always make it easier. She had suffered from Alzheimer’s for more than 8 years, hadn’t spoken much in the last year, and could barely wake up for the last month. And yet a life of healthy choices made her body’s strength, even though her mind had left, amazing.

During all that time, my mom was her primary care provider, and it was a testament to both of their kindness, good nature and patience — Filial piety at its best.

I last saw Grandma in August, and even though she was barely there, in the moment, I was glad that I did. This was my last picture, with her and my mom: