Grandma Eleanor

Macaroni and cheese, sugar cookies with frosting and sprinkles, and raspberry sherbet punch. These were just a few of the homemade goodies that my Grandma Eleanor would make for Christmas and all the other holidays and family functions.
Every Christmas my sister, brothers, cousins and I would all be SOOO excited for the homemade goodies that we would forget about our presents until it was time to open them. We would go directly to the kitchen and grab as many cookies as our parents would let us have before dinner. They would then send us downstairs to play and anxiously wait in anticipation for the macaroni and cheese, sherbet punch and the rest of dinner.
As we would be driving to grandma’s house in York, NE, my siblings and I would be talking about what food we were most excited for and the result was always the same: all three!!! We were never able to pick just one, we would constantly be changing our minds and then we would be like I’m excited for all of them because I can’t choose just one.
There was always such a high demand for the sugar cookies with all of us kids being so close together in age that my grandma Eleanor would make dozens of sugar cookies ahead of time and freeze them so that they were ready for us to gobble down. Even as we got older, we still ate a lot of the sugar cookies. I think ate more than the others since cookies are my weak spot. This still holds true today.
Homemade macaroni and cheese. Where do I even begin on this one? My grandma has always made macaroni and cheese from her own recipe and has never made instant macaroni and cheese. Grandma Eleanor’s macaroni and cheese was even a big hit when my father was a little boy. He and his brothers and sister loved it just as much as my brothers, sister, cousins and I do.
This dish has become a tradition in our family. There is not one family function that has gone without this popular dish. My dad has made it for us and I have I even drove home to Doniphan from Kearney just to eat some. My sister has made it for her husband and his family and they have become as addicted to it as my family is.
It was my grandma’s birthday last Friday. She would have been 82 had the cancer not taken her form us two years ago, but I’m proud to say that she gave it her all and fought the disease for ten long years. My dad had cried that day. It was one of the rare times I had ever seen him cry and the only other exception that I can think of was at my sisters’ wedding on Valentine’s Day earlier this year. I am very close to my dad and it was hard for me to see him so distraught.
I know she isn’t able to be with us any more in person but I do know that she is with us in our spirits and our hearts. My grandma had loved to fly when she was younger and had always loved planes. The day of her funeral, a little Cessna 140 had flew over her burial as the minister was delivering her speech. It was a sign to us all that we should continue with our lives and not to mourn for her because she is in a better place and that is what she would have wanted us to do. It was a very emotional day for the family when she was laid to rest that hot July day. She has been and will be forever missed.