Garneau’s

My grandmother (gama, as I call her), passed away on August 28, 2008. My younger sister, who is soon to get married called me from India and said that our gama had a peaceful death. She said that she was smiling when she died. I am sad and I will miss her because she was a great influence in my life. Yet, I am happy that she is happy in a better place. I am trying to upload a picture of her but I haven’t figured it out yet, and will try to do it as soon as I can.

A woman I look up to. She is a tiny little woman with a huge heart. My dad’s mother is 89 and I just learned this morning that she has been struggling to breathe because of various health complications. The last time, I saw her was in March 2008. She loves Micah very much and has been blessed to see her first great grandchild, Jonah.

My grandmother’s name is Ruth Margaret and it sounds very English and Biblical to me for someone who was born almost 90 years ago in India with not so much Christian influence around them. It happens that her father, worked for the British people since British ruled in India for almost 200 years (atleast something like that, I don’t pay attention in School History class). As a young girl, she once showed me a post card that her father wrote her while he was living in Sri Lanka. With what I understand, he not only loved his daughter but had so much respect for her. My grandmother was well educated and worked as a Registered Nurse in a Missions Hospital built by Europeans.

As far as I can remember, she has been deaf and couldn’t hear in her early 40s. She was smart to read our lips and understand and would relate perfectly well to our conversation. She has such deep love for the Lord and it was evident. A quiet and humble lady who has endured through many hardships in life, by raising three children by herself after she became a widow while was 38.

I am honored to be her granddaughter and have been blessed by her for investing so much into my life. I love her so much and I just know that should the Lord call her home even today, I can visualize her big smile and the way she would gently place her hands on her cheeks when she sees Jesus as she enters into Glory.

Jonah and I will be in India in 8 days and I am not confident that she will be able to prolong and fight for her life that long. I just have peace in my heart although I may or may not see her again on earth, there is hope and assurance that she will be in a better place and she can finally hear after many decades.

Yes, we just got back from India and we had a great time. But for some reason, going on a family vacation is different from going to see and visit family. This was our first family vacation with Micah’s mom, his sister, Shelby, her husband Jim and their beautiful daughter Olivia (2 years) in Florida. We had FUN for four full days. We went non-stop from place to place, visiting parks as much as we could. Within 4 days of our time in Orlando, we went to Downtown Disney, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Magical Kingdom, Sleuths Mystery Dinner, Wet n Wild Water Parks. We had an amazing time watching Jonah and Olivia play together and trying to talk with each other.

You know, they say, all fun must come to an end and our time in Orlando just flew so fast and it was time to get back to MN. Rebekah was sad to leave Florida. It reminded her of warm weather like in India and she saw tons of Indians at the disney world. Jonah was trying to keep up with Olivia and he definitely enjoyed all the rides that he was allowed to go. For some rides, he was just speechless…not that he says much anyways.

http://s296.photobucket.com/albums/mm196/garneaus/Disney/

Check out our pictures from this above link….

It’s been a while since I posted any article in our website. The three of us were in Chennai, India. It was so good to be home, enjoy home cooked meals, have people wait on you….I can live with that. My beautiful younger sister got engaged while we were there. We are happy for her - it’s an arranged love marriage, yes that’s right, that is what I will call it. She met her fiance for the first time on his birthday and they went on a date. They both decided that they will be happy with each other and decided to get married. Ebenezer, my sister’s fiance, is a fun loving guy and works in Bristol, England. A week after their first date, there was an official engagement ceremony. It was wonderful to celebrate my sister’s engagement and Jonah had a fabulous time.

Jonah did pretty alright while travelling, although I should say that travelling alone with him was not very smart, but oh well, anything for family right?  Jonah is 18 months old now and is very very very busy. He definitely keeps me busy. We have moved to the first floor now and we are closer to the children’s park. Jonah loves to play all the time. We are all doing good. Would love to hear from you…do drop us a line…