Memorial Board for Grandpa

This past week, my father in law passed away unexpectedly. We've been worrying about my mother with her health problems lately, so the news that my husband's father died really took us by surprise. James & Hannah adored their Grandpa and it was especially difficult seeing them in such pain.
I was about 19 when I lost my first grandparent and my last one died in 2011.

We received the news on Friday. We left for Indiana first thing the next morning. It's really tough being so far away from our family during times like this. By the time we arrived on Saturday, all of the arrangements had already been made. We felt pretty helpless, but we wanted to do something, so Hannah & I offered to make the photo memorial boards.

Because Sunday was Easter, we weren't able to gather our supplies until Monday. Chris and the kids searched through old photos at Grandma's house. We took the old 3x3 square photos to Sams Club and made copies of them. We didn't want to use the original ones on the boards. Hannah sorted the pictures and chose the best ones to use.

Here are the completed Memorial Boards. The first one pictured is of more recent years.

This one is the earlier years.

We did enjoy seeing relatives. We had not seen most of Chris' aunts, uncles, & cousins since before we moved to Georgia in 2000. We also got to visit my mom a couple of times in the hospital. And my sister was in town visiting mom, too, so that was an added bonus. We were planning to go up to Indiana exactly one week later during spring break so we could see mom and visit all of the grandparents.

Here are some pictures of Grandpa Nick with James & Hannah over the years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last two were taken this past Christmas, the last time we saw Grandpa.

 

 

We miss you, Grandpa Nick!