Recently, my grandmother passed away due to congestive heart failure. A week or two before that, I was picked up after school by my mother. She said, “I think we’re going to skip tennis today and go see Grandma. She is in the hospital.” Now my family and I are all sad, but my grandmother did leave many hilarious memories behind. These stories can remind my family and me of her, and give us good things to remember her by.
My grandma was chronically late. It was fairly uncommon for her to be on time, and this could easily drive other people crazy, my father included. My grandma was the leader of a string quartet. For one of her performances, she had asked my dad to take pictures, and he had agreed. However, on the day of the performance, she was, like always, late. As time ticked away, and there was still no sign of my grandma. The audience and the three other quartet members were all there on time and prepared, and my dad became irritated.
          

Finally, my grandma arrived. At the time, she had a foot injury, so she was wearing a big heavy boot-like cast. My grandmother slowly made her way up the stairs of the stage (on the opposite side of the rest of her quartet). Then, she thumped over to her place next to the other performers and set down her pile of disorganized sheet music, and removed her coat. By now, my dad was getting frustrated with my grandmother.
          

Finally, my grandma went to start up the performance by introducing the quartet with the microphone…which was conveniently located back on the side of the stage that she had come from. She limped all the way back to the microphone, but could not figure out how to get it to turn on! My dad was now pretty angry, and eventually decided to just get up and go help her. So he stood up and marched over towards the raised stage. However, when he swung his leg up, his shoe came loose and sailed twenty feet and almost hit the cello!
          

To make matters even worse (although, at this point, that seems nearly impossible) my grandma managed to fix the microphone at that instant, so it appeared that my dad had gone up there simply to hurl his footwear at the performers. My father, absolutely mortified, slunk over and picked up his shoe. As he returned to his seat, my humorous grandma announced into the microphone, “That’s my son-in-law. He’s here to provide the comic relief.”
          

To this day, we still smile at that memory, and although her signature lateness (and other oddities) could drive us up the wall, they were also what gave her a lot of her character. We can remember my grandmother with this story and others like it, and keep fond memories from our times spent with her.