Jill's Journal: In Grandma’s words ...

My Grandma (Meier) Subbert was a wise woman.

Despite the fact that her education ended at the eighth grade because her father needed help on the farm, Grandma was wise about life, and every so often, she’d offer a piece of advice that simply stuck in my mind.

Like this one: “Jill, you’ll never find love on a barstool.”

At the time, I laughed off because I was dating a fella who I truly thought had the potential to be “the one.” After all, the “barstool” is where we first connected. But typically, as all good things do, our relationship came to an end, and just over a year later, the “we” became just “me.”

I guess Grandma was right.

In her later years of life, I would often swing by her home to pick her up and bring her to our family gatherings. It was during one those moments on the road that we truly talked – and not about the weather or how the crops were doing – but we truly talked about life. On one particular drive, she told me, “When the Grandma goes, so does the family.”

I couldn’t argue that one, as I was fortunate at that time to have both of my grandmothers, each reaching their ninth decades of life (and beyond). But now years later, I find some truth in her words. The Schultz side of my family gathers from time to time at the Pizza Ranch in Mankato, Minn. While none of us live there, it serves as a central meeting place for the large majority of us, and no one has to cook – or do the dishes. As for the Meier side of the family, we’ve made it a practice to gather when Aunt Karen comes to Minnesota.

And that’s what occurred Sunday. Aunt Karen, who now calls Arizona her home, was back for a high school class reunion.

I got to thinking about the last time Aunt Karen came for a visit. My Mom, Aunt Doris, Uncle Marty and Cousin David were all there. But this time, they weren’t. Sadly, the ugly disease of cancer won the battle against each of them.

As a kid, family gatherings were – at a minimal – once a month. Without fail, we gathered for Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. And of course, someone was always having a birthday or an anniversary, getting confirmed, graduating, exchanging ‘I do’s’ or celebrating a new arrival to the family with their baptism.

Today, while weddings and graduations are the happier events to attend, they’ve now become fewer and fewer. Instead, funerals are what bring us together more often than naught.

As it always does, time simply went too fast on Sunday, so I made a point to stay as long as I could that day, because as life goes on, the next time we gather, another member of the Meier clan may no longer be here.

As Grandma forecasted so many years ago, our gatherings have become fewer and fewer as time marches on. I’m always going to cherish our time together whenever Aunt Karen comes to Minnesota for a visit or whatever reason there may be to gather. As the patriarch of the Meier family once said, “When the Grandma goes, so does the family.”

And that can’t happen.