"Sister" Grandma Jeanne

First of all, so very sorry to have delayed this post.

I was fortunate to join the same church as Grandma Jeanne when our three parishes combined.  Granted, I was a Holy Family member so we didn't often congregate with those from St. Gerard.  When we joined communities to form Holy Spirit we attended mass in the "old" church across the street.  This particular church wasn't conducive to viewing fellow church goers and since my family ALWAYS sat on the right hand side of the church anywhere from the first pew to the fifth pew back, our view of the left hand side of the church was minimized.  However, I have vivid memories of Jeanne at church.  She sat on the front left hand side and congregated with the Wingerters and a multitude of other church-goers.  I obviously didn't know her as Grandma Jeanne at the time, nor did I think of her as anyone's Grandma for that matter.  As a matter of fact, from a very young age, I believed that Jeanne was a NUN!

I continued to believe Grandma was a nun until the day Meghan and I attended church together for the first time and Meghan told me she wanted me to meet her grandmother.  Even after Meghan introduced Jeanne as her grandmother I still refused to believe she wasn't a member of some Catholic Order of sisters and that she had retired, which would explain the lack of the black and white attire.  I remember asking Meghan, "So why do you call her grandma?  Did you guys "adopt" her into your family or something like that?"  Give me a break here, I was trying to overcome 15+ years of mistaken identity.

At the time I didn't know why I had made the mistake of assuming Grandma Jeanne was a nun, nor could I believe that I didn't make the connection to the Wingerters.  It wasn't until Meghan and I lived with Grandma that I fully came to understand why I had believed what I believed for so many years.  To me the sisterhood has and always will be connected to women who heard and most importantly answered a calling to something greater than themselves.  Grandma was called to serve her God, her family and her community, all of which she did in her own unique way.  I was fortunate to watch her service in action while we lived with her for those months and consider myself a better person for having been influenced by Grandma's desire to live a life that was so balanced, authentic, and a true representation of what it means to become the very best possible version of oneself.

So there's that.  I was going to share a funny/horrifying/awkward moment that I shared with my soon to be grandmother-in-law while on a trip to Sioux Falls with Meghan, Jan, Molly, and Jen.  But you'll have to ask me in person after I've had a few beers and I'm more willing to relive the moment out loud.

-Ryan