{...a breezy life} at briemarisa.com

The past few days have been full of grandmothers. Which is a weird thing to notice, I guess, but for me, that's how it's been.

It started with Preston and Steve (you can Podcast them if you don't live in the Philly area, they are hysterical!) on WMMR. They do an event every year called the Granny Grand Prix, in which grandmothers race against each other in a go-cart race! They spend all week interviewing the Granny's and then held the race on Friday! The race is a riot but the interviews are even better- one sassy Granny after the next! One lady said she was an old BAG: Bad Ass Granny! HA! Loves it! I listened to all of the interviews leading up to the event while I fed PJ his breakfast all week!

I also stumbled upon this beautiful post by a Mommy blogger I had never heard of before- someone re-tweeted one of her tweets (you know how that goes) and I found myself reading her story about her "Momsie", sharing both her grief in her loss and her sweet memories. It was a lovely, honest post- would that I could write as well! It brought me to tears.

In the midst of our normal routine, we are also planning PJ's baby naming ceremony. Because of his hypospadias, PJ wasn't able to have a traditional bris. But, bris or no bris, a Jewish child receives a Hebrew name. Naming for deceased relatives is a Jewish tradition, and of course, there are a number of people that PJ never got to know that we would like to honor in our choice of a name. I can't let on yet what name we chose, but in our choosing, my own Mom-Mom was in my heart. In our very last conversation, she hinted at what names she would like if Pete and I had a baby. Of course, as we had that conversation, PJ was forming the tiniest spark of life inside of me, just as Mom-Mom's spark was going out.

I knew that when we lost my Mom-Mom, we would continue to see reminders of her everywhere. I mean, how could we not? She was so lovely, so strong, so integral in our lives. I wasn't, however, prepared for the emotional impact of those reminders, even over a year after her passing. Particularly when I see her face in my son's.