"Grandma" Essie

Last weekend we went home to Wausau unexpectedly for a funeral. A very, very special person in my life passed away - our next door neighbor "Essie". My grandparents were all gone when I was very young, so my memories of them are lacking and I missed out on those special bonds. But Essie was always there and filled that void for me as I grew up. She and her husband Henry and daughter Cynthia have lived next door to my parents' house for almost 40 years.

Essie's real name was Esther, but because I struggled with her name, I called her "Essie" from a very young age and it stuck. I used to go over to their house all the time growing up and play the card game "War" with her. Essie would always let me win, but Cynthia never did - and I'd routinely go home crying because of it. She was always feeding me and I especially remember devouring all of the "ground cherries" she gave me from her garden. She never had any grandchildren of her own, so I think we really did cling to each other for that reason over the years - we had that connection from the beginning. They had a cottage in northern WI for a long time and we'd often go up there - I remember swimming, fishing and feeding the chipmunks. They always seemed to have animals around - I loved that about the place. The priest at the funeral told a story of how one summer Essie "adopted" a goose and a mallard who swam by every day for a visit and some food. She named them Pete and Repeat. But one day, one of them didn't come by...Essie later found out the duck had been attacked and wasn't doing well. Eventually it came around again and Essie handfed it, rubbing on it's throat to help get the food down. She saved his life that way. That is just the type of person she was - so wonderfully caring and helpful.

I will miss her terribly. Every time we went home, we made time to visit her and she especially loved seeing Reese and Ava, her "great granddaughters". But Essie lived a long life - she was just shy of her 94th birthday and was still living at home and doing relatively well. It was just in the past few months that she was diagnosed with lung cancer and that eventually was what took its toll on her. Her mind was as sharp as it had always been. She was lucky to still have her daughter Cynthia taking care of her until the very end. Her funeral truly was a "celebration" of her life, because she had a great, long one. Unlike the recent deaths of our loved ones, we don't feel like Essie was taken away from us too soon - it was just right - and we can take comfort in the fact that she is back with her husband Henry and living without pain. I was also honored to be a pallbearer for her, I'm so glad that Cynthia asked me.

Here she is holding Reese a little over 2 years ago:

Miss you and love you, Essie.