Good bye dear friend

I check our old home paper on line frequently, keeps me caught up with the news even tho we have been gone for 20 some years. That is how I found out that our neighbor Grandma Vi
(Violet Strand) had passed away. Vi became the Grandma to my kids when we moved to Lindstrom MN when Kathy was just starting Kindergarten. Age does not matter between friends and that is what Vi and I became, close friends. When we had the chimney fire, Vi was right there to answer the door and take in 3 frighten kids and get them back to sleep. The memories of her wading though knee to hip deep snow to spend Thanksgiving with us because there was no way she was going to drive to her family to spend the holiday. We would hike and ski the woods we so dearly loved. Even tho we had to move to Texas and then back to MN and then to SD we kept in contact. The last years were not kind to Vi as she came down with Alzheimer's like so many have and so many of us will. All of our secrets, the memories we shared became locked away. Good bye dear friend, you taught me so much and I loved you as if you were my Mom.