Enjoyed each moment

Dear Kim and Adam,

Emily and Elizabeth loved Joy so much.  They would have been here at the memorial if they could have, but it was wonderful to be able to bring their words to the group.

Emily Case.

Although I did not understand why I had five grandparents when I was younger, Joy never treated me any differently from her blood relatives. I always felt just as loved with her as I did with any of my genetic grandparents, and it was truly an honor to know such a fair, unconditionally loving woman.

 

 

Elizabeth Case.

When I was six and Grandma Joy was sixty-six, I thought it was the greatest thing in the whole wide world that she was exactly sixty years older than me. We giggled and laughed and she chased me around in the Bovina sunshine and the sixty years between us were irrelevant. When we tired, we would go inside to fill a bowl with cherries, carefully picking out the darkest and ripest. And we would take them back outside and sit in the chairs by the lake and bask as we ate each cherry one by one. She taught me, in those moments, how to fill every moment with joy. I have never met another person who was so aptly named.

Now, even though I am three thousand miles away and twenty instead of six, she still sits with me. In front of me is a courtyard instead of a lake and I am eating an apple instead of cherries, but I feel her just the same. She is reminding me to look up, take notice, and enjoy each moment. She is reminding me to live life with vigor and enthusiasm and intentness. I only hope that one day I'll be able to return the favor to my grandchildren, who will pass it on to their grandchildren, and we will all live and thrive as joyously as she did.

Warmest Regards,

Jan