Grandma Crazy passed away yesterday

She died peacefully while napping in her favorite chair. She'd spent the day at the activity center for the elderly as she used to do twice a week. She has had a long fulfilling life, but she was much reduced the last year, shaking badly due to strong medicines and she was nearly deaf - we communicated with pens and notepads as she didn't like her hearing aid. She was dealing with heart condition and her back and joints pained her quite a bit. I will miss her, but I'm also glad she has passed on and will no longer have to deal with pain and suffering.

Grandma Crazy was hubby's paternal grandmother. She was one of the most colourful ladies I have ever met. She loved her family fiercely and passionately. She worked hard all her life to provide and care for her family and for that she has my utmost respect.

She was also a bone fide madwoman. Seriously, she was so far out there, I think she would be forced on some heavy duty medicine if she was young today. Hubby believes her experiences during WWII may have a lot of the blame for her craziness. She was among the many who had to escape over the mountains over to Sweden when the Germans burned off the northern part of the country. She had a newborn baby at the time. From what she's told us about that time, it was beyond horrible. They didn't have more than the clothes they wore and the little food they were able to grab as they ran. She told stories about how they had to leave the sick and the weak to die where they collapsed. They barely had any food and nobody had enough clothes to protect them against the cold and the weather.  I don't think anyone can survive such an experience and not suffer some sort of trauma, but I think much of her craziness is something she was born with and something that existed in her blood and still exist in some extent in all her bloodline, but I don't really speak of this out loud too much...

At various times she has disowned members of her family. She disowned us as well, but I'm happy to say that we had all made our peace with her before the end and she was among family who loved her and cared for her the last few years of her life.

In loving remembrance of  her and all the fun crazy stuff that always seemed to go on around this lady, I give you a couple of stories about Grandma Crazy.