As Mike and I got ready to hit the road to head to the lake for the Fourth of July, I gave my dying house plants one last drink of water as he stood at our fridge putting things in our cooler. “Kath,” he said as he searched in the fridge, “I thought you said you bought a small coffee creamer that you wanted us to take to the lake.” “I did.” I said, “It’s right on the bottom shelf there.” He looked around some more and finally gave up saying, “I don’t see it. Are you sure you bought one?” I shook my head and finally walked over to the the fridge, “It’s right here! I said as I lifted up my French Vanilla coffee creamer. “If it were a snake it would have bit ya!” I said with a chuckle. ‘Classic men! Can’t find their way around the kitchen!’ I thought to myself. (And then I chuckled some more at the sexist joke I made in my head.) But he just looked back at me appalled and said, “THAT BIG THING?! That is not a small coffee creamer!” I looked at it again wondering if we were looking at the same coffee creamer. “What are you talking about?” I said back, “This is small! It’s like travel size!” He laughed as he took it and placed it in the cooler. “No, it’s definitely not small.” He said. After thinking it over, I could see he had a point, that maybe they do sell smaller coffee creamers SOMEWHERE in the grocery store where I clearly don’t shop. Finally I said “Well.. it’s smallER than the 64 ounce creamer that I normally buy.” He just shook his head and smiled as he pushed aside the extremely large jar of garlic we have in our fridge so he could access a few more things to place in the cooler.

Buying very large grocery items is just in my genes. It is an inherited family trait I have from my Grandma, Margaret Coleman. She passed away in 2016 but she would have been 99 on the Fourth of July. (Your birthday on the Fourth of July-talk about American!) She was an amazing woman. She was smart, funny, generous and compassionate. She was a doting grandma (“Gramma” is actually what she went by) and wonderful mom. Her and my Grandpa raised 14 children that are all now really awesome and successful adults. (With 14 kids she definitely needed to buy those large grocery items!) She was a fantastic example on how to live a good and meaningful life.

As my Mom (Margaret’s daughter) put it when I stopped over a few weeks ago, “you can’t help but think of Gramma on the Fourth of July.” While this is true, I find myself thinking about her just about every day.

As I mentioned, I received the “buy in bulk” trait from my Grandma. I also inherited the “just stick it in the freezer” gene from my Grandma as well. I know my Mom, many of my aunts, uncles and cousins also have this gene. We learned from my Grandma that you should not waste food. If something is about to go bad-just stick it in the freezer to save it for another time. There is no limit to what can be frozen! You can even freeze bread! In fact, I grew up having to defrost two slices of bread in the microwave before making myself a pb&j. Sometimes I’d have to bang the bread loaf on the counter a few times in order to get two slices loose, but I never really thought twice about it. That’s just how we were raised.

Mike and my freezer now is pretty stocked with leftover meals that I just didn’t have the heart to throw out. It even still has part of our wedding cake from two years ago. We were told we were supposed to freeze a piece of our wedding cake and take it out on our 1st wedding anniversary? But we completely forgot about it when anniversary #1 rolled around, (neither Mike or I are big cake people) and I couldn’t just throw it out, how wasteful! So lots of times when one of us opens the basement freezer to grab something, there goes our wedding cake, tumbling out and almost hitting us in the face. It can be inconvenient and sometimes dangerous keeping so many things in the freezer, but every time that frozen cake comes tumbling out at me and I shove it back in next to the frozen hamburger buns and quickly close that door before it has the chance to tumble out again-I smile and think of my Grandma.

While my Grandma was a saver she really enjoyed life to the fullest. She believed in celebrating all the good things in life. She was an epic host, planning very fun parties for just about every holiday. Christmas, Halloween, family reunions, Fourth of July parties, etc. You name the party and Marge hosted. With such a big family, her home was always packed during these gatherings. When it came to sharing a meal, there were never enough seats, but everyone found their place. You were never guaranteed a roll at Christmas dinner, but you were guaranteed a set of plastic silverware lovingly rolled in a festive napkin and tied with ribbon by my Grandma. But you didn’t dare throw out that plastic silverware-That would be wasteful. Plastic silverware of my Grandma’s was to be washed and used again for the next party. We treated it like fine china. I think my Grandma had some sort of silent alarm that went off if a plastic fork was about to be tossed because any time you were accidentally about to throw out a plastic utensil with your garbage, about 30 people would pop out of no where and yell “SAVE THE PLASTIC SILVERWARE!” It was slightly awkward when this happened to someone’s new boyfriend/girlfriend but it was kind of like, ‘hey, if you want to be a part of this family you have to hold on to that plastic. Otherwise, beat it!’

No matter how packed these holiday parties were, before dinner was to be served, we’d all gather around the dining room table and my Grandma would say Grace. After the prayer she’d always give a killer speech about how blessed we are to have things that lots of people take for granted-a good home, food on the table, but most of all- each other.

I don’t get to hear her speeches anymore on the holidays, but I always think about the messages of gratitude she spoke.

So while I think about my Grandma every year on the Fourth of July, I also think of her when I buy that extra large coffee creamer. I think about her when I go to sleep with my heating pad on even a 90 degree day, just like she did. I think about her when I see an Altoids tin because she used them as ash trays. (She didn’t like the mints but she thought their containers made for great travel ash trays.) I think about her when I’m flipping through channels and see Blue Bloods, Law & Order or The Golden Girls on because those seemed to always be playing on her tv. I think about her when someone orders a Manhattan because that was her drink. But most of all, I think of her when I see my mom, because she inherited all my Grandma’s wonderful qualities and traits. And when I see my mom interacting with her own grandkids, I smile and think, ‘I hope they know how lucky they are’ because they have a really amazing Grandma.