Grandma Turns 100!

Who in their right mind would travel 1000 miles round trip in two days just for a birthday party?! That would be us because it is not every day you have a Grandma who turns 100! That's right, this weekend we celebrated 100 years of life for my dad's mom, Lydia Vaden and it was on her actual birthday to boot, November 1. It seems like a crazy thing to do, but it was important to my dad and well, it was important for me too, so Dennis went along with it all.

We left Friday after school and drove halfway which was Pendleton, Oregon roughly four hours away. We enjoyed a dip in the hotel hot tub so I guess that almost made it seem like it was a vacation. We drove the final four hours Saturday morning and arrived in Moutain Home, Idaho at about 2pm Idaho time. Grandma's party did not start until 3pm, but we enjoyed hanging out with my two aunts at the American Legion hall where the party was being held.

As one might expect, the American Legion hall in Mtn. Home is not a particulary fancy building. It dates probably back to the 70s or possibly earlier and hasn't been updated since then. For ambiance, there is 30 years accumulated cigarette smell, low ceilings and poor lighting. It made it very difficult to get good pictures, especially for an amatuer photographer like me. I did my best but the photos were either too dark, people's faces too shiny or green or the photos were blurry.

It was a very simple affair with mostly family, various relatives outside of direct family and people from Mtn. Home. There was a country/folk/rockabilly/gospel singer on accoustic guitar (too loud as most people complained but grandma thought he was great). My family, meaning dad's descendents, probably accounted for half the people there. Five of the eight siblings with some of their kids and grandkids were there. Everyone from my family stayed until about 5:30. We the Chandlers were the last to leave when dad left. We then drove the four hours back to Pendleton, stayed the night and drove the other four hours back this morning.

Now why would we do such a crazy thing? I guess it was so my boys could do the two-step and the swing with their great-aunts Boots and Deanna. So that I could see relatives that I haven't seen in 20 years or more, many of whom I would not recognized if I met them on the street. So that I could hear over and over again from those same Aunts, my Grandma and most importantly my dad, how happy they were that I came. So that my children could meet a Great Grandmother that they have never met before (Tucker is the only one who has met her and the last time was when he was just a baby). So we could pay tribute to a woman who has lived a long, somewhat cantankerous (okay really cantankerous) and amazing life.

I don't know my Grandma Vaden as well as I should. We were never particularly close. I think I like to place most of the blame for that on her end (and she deserves alot of it) but I think it works both ways. I don't know that she was every very comfortable with our family and we with her. Who knows everything she had to go through in keeping my dad at a time when having a baby out of wedlock was so very frowned upon? There is so much of her life that is a mystery that she would never divulge and now never will. I don't know all of what makes/made her the way she is. I guess I should have tried harder to find out.

No one is certain how much of her birthday party Grandma will remember. She seemed pretty lucid but who knows. What I do know is that my boys will probably remember it for a long time. They will remember that mom made them go on a crazy drive for a visit that lasted roughly 3 hours. They will remember being kissed, sometimes more than once, by strangers who mom insisted were family. (The Vaden clan are a kissing kind of family). They will remember dancing with their great aunts, eating pickled beets for the first time (Spencer, and he didn't like them) and most importatly, I hope they will remember that family IS the most important thing there is and sometimes we do crazy things for them.