I was tagged

This is my 6th picture in my 6th folder on this computer. It is a picture of my niece Julianna on her mission in Uruguay in the Montevideo Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She will be there for about 7 more months. She has grown in amazing ways thus far on her mission. I wish I could share her letters and emails with you here but that is not feasible. I am proud of all of my nieces and nephews. But I am closest to my Dittmar nieces. Our families truly just meld from on family to the next. My sister is 'Grandma' to my grandchildren and in truth when we get together the grandchildren have a hard time telling which one is Marianne and which one is me. I love my Dittmar nieces as much as I love my own daughters. We have practically raised our families as one. Now they are all in Utah with the exception of Julianna.

I was having a pity party the other day. I was feeling sad that I don't get to live closer than 10 hours to any of my grandchildren. Then I thought of my own grandparents but in particular my Grandma Sarah or Omi. She never lived close to any of her daughters after they left home except for short stints when a husband was on a 'hardship' tour or during Aunt Norma's divorce. But that was just a few years in all. Aunt Alice Anne was in California and sometimes didn't make it to Utah for several years. We had many years when we were overseas that we didn't get to see our Utah family. Once Grandpa Tuttle died though, then Omi would come and stay for extended visits. That was fun. But that wasn't until I was a JR in High School. I truly spent most of my childhood with just summer visits in Manti. I am still surprised how close Omi and I always were. The best years I had were the years I was at Snow and then Clyde and I were at BYU. We made sure we would go and visit Omi at least 1 weekend a month when she was in town. I loved seeing her. She has always been an important part of my life - but then she was my grandmother. I have decided that even though she was in my life for such short spans she still had a great impact. I have got to figure out how she did it because obviously in that respect my life is mimicking hers. I am never going to be in close proximity to any of our grandchildren and I need to quit feeling sorry for myself about it. What I need to do is find ways to have a positive impact on each of their lives and let them know that I am always here for them.