Anna Moser
I remember when we visited Grandma and Grandpa, I was always the first one to wake up. I would go upstairs to find her in the kitchen putting together breakfast. She would greet me with a tight hug and a kiss on the top of my head and ask me to start setting the table.
While we set it together, she took the time to answer each and every one of my many questions. I would pull her into the dining room and point up at all the paintings she had done, asking her to tell me how she made them. She told me Bob Ross was a great teacher and that painting comes easier when you practice.
That visit she set up an easel and a canvas for me and let me use her beautiful paints to make a not-so-beautiful painting. Later in the day, when she came down to check on me and bring me orange slices, I expressed to her my dismay in my lack of artistic talent.
She smiled and said she wasn’t very good when she first started. I looked at her master-level paintings and, of course, didn’t believe her. She laughed and pulled out a small blue painting of two swans in a pond together. She said that it was one of the first ones she ever did, and that I should be nice to myself when I was first starting something. She gave me that painting that trip. I believe I was seven years old.
I remember holding it on the long drive home and feeling so incredibly special.
There are so many more cherished memories. Whenever we played a board game, she would ask to be on my team because my older brothers were always teamed up together. She would wink at me across the dinner table after referencing something we had talked about earlier.
One visit when I was sick and had to stay home from an outing, she sat with me and we watched a Hallmark movie. She let me talk all about my mom, who had just passed away. She didn't try to make it better or cheer me up, she just listened. It was perhaps my favorite gift she gave to me, and Grandma had a very generous heart.
She made me feel so treasured. So loved.
She knew how powerful that gift was, and she gave it freely. I loved her quick, unexpectedly dry humor, her unbending love for her family, and her dedication to truly seeing everyone around her. Love you very much Grandma.
