The Passing of Grandma BerDella

We got a call Monday morning that Grandma BerDella passed away Sunday night. Brian’s parents were with here in the evening. She said she was really tired, so they helped her get ready for bed and lay down before they left at 8 pm. By 10 pm they got a call that she had passed away. We’re glad it was quick and hope it was painless for her. While the loss of a family member is always a sad thing, we are really happy for her. She has been so miserably lonely for the last 15 years since her sweetheart died. This is what she wanted. We know she is happy in heaven with her maker and her most precious family having a joyous reunion she has longed for these many long years.

Monday it didn't really hit us, but Tuesday I asked Brian how he was doing. He sort of summed up both our feelings when he said he was mostly just sad that our children would never really have memories of her. It is odd to think that someone that was such a part of his life growing up won't be around when we visit home anymore. We are a bit sad that she missed meeting her newest great grandson, Jacob. They missed meeting each other by just a few days. It has been fun to sit with Brian the last few days and think through memories of Grandma BerDella. We thought we would share them here for our posterity and family to enjoy. Memories of Grandma BerDella Zufelt By Brian Zufelt

• Grandma BerDella loved holding newborn babies. She was always excited to hold and caress the newborns and would gaze down at their faces and their small hands and feet. In the past several years she would comment that she shakes too much, but that wouldn’t stop her from admiring the little ones.
• Grandma BerDella loved and respected the Temple.
• Any time we visited Grandma BerDella, she would tell us about what she was growing in her garden. They had a good bit of land in the back yard where they grew a garden. She loved to share the fresh food with us.
• My earliest memories of BerDella and Syril were of them visiting us at our house. They were hard working and would always help us out with some sort of project around the house. I believe the project often involved helping us take care of our garden.
• Grandma BerDella kept a box of toys in the garage for us to play when we visited. Many of the toys were outdoor games such as lawn darts, badminton, and a hula hoop. We spent hours reading the comic books and playing with the toys she kept in the basement room. She also kept several bikes at her house for us to ride when we would visit her. We would ride all around the neighborhood. We would also ride the bikes over to an empty lot with a huge hole dug out. We would ride all around and in and out of the hole. I particularly remember a bump in the sidewalk lifted by the roots of a large tree in her front yard. We would ride as fast as we could to jump the bikes over the great jump. I also remember sitting with Grandma and Grandpa on the swing on the front porch watching the neighbors.
• Our Zufelt and Malmgren grandparents lived very close together and got along well together. We would see them about one weekend a month and usually saw both sets in the same visit—either we would visit both of them at their own houses, or they would travel together to visit us at our house. Every year we would celebrate either Thanksgiving or Christmas at one of the grandparents’ house, and the other holiday at our house. When it was Grandma and Grandpa Zufelt’s turn to host, they would set up a long table in the middle of the living room to be able to accommodate all of the guests. There were always two dishes we could count on grandma to bring: 1) Orange jello salad with crushed pineapple and mandarin oranges mixed in and topped with layers of marshmallows, vanilla pudding, whipped cream, and sprinkled with grated cheddar cheese; and 2) baked beans.
• When Angie and I were in college, we had the opportunity to intern with a couple of companies out of state. We had limited room to bring things with us and needed a place to store most of our household items. Grandma BerDella quickly volunteered to store our couch, kitchen table, shelves, and many more items in her garage for the nine months we would be away. When we returned, we found that she had taken great care of our belongings, including covering it with tarps and throwing rat poison around and under it to keep the critters away. Thinking back on the situation, she probably checked on it for at least once each and every day.
• While we were interning in Kentucky, we invited my parents (Craig and Anne Zufelt) and grandparents (Grandma BerDella Zufelt and Grandpa Dean Malmgren) to visit. Grandma BerDella stayed with us in our two-bedroom apartment while my parents and Grandpa Dean stayed in a nearby hotel. We lived right on the Kentucky / Indiana state line which was also a time zone border. Anytime we talked about a schedule and state a time we would do something, Grandma would ask if we were talking Utah time, Kentucky time, or Indiana time. We later found out that Grandma did not change her watch so she had to translate everything back into Utah time so she could track our schedule. One of the mornings, she wanted to be sure she was ready by the time my parents would arrive around 7:00 so she got up around 4:00 (that’s 2:00 a.m. Utah time) and stayed in her room until she heard we had left the house at about 6:00. At that point she took her shower. We only left to run to the store for a few items for breakfast and returned to the house in a very short time. Grandma did not expect us back so soon and had not taken her clothes to the bathroom with her. Surprised that we were back so quickly, she wrapped up in a towel and ran back into her room to get dressed.
• Grandma BerDella worked very hard her whole life and saved so her posterity would receive an inheritance. She always made sure to send or give Birthday and Christmas cards with a check each year. Several years ago, Grandma decided that she needed to distribute the inheritance to all of her living posterity so they could enjoy the money before she died. She sent us a large check with the instructions that this was the final inheritance and she would not be sending any more money for Birthdays or Christmas. However, for Grandma, this still was not sufficient. Not more than two years later, the Birthday and Christmas cards contained checks again.
• Grandma BerDella was always very thoughtful about attending life events such as baby blessings, weddings, and graduations and sent Birthday Cards every year. This past year she sent her great grandson, Ben, a dollar for his Birthday. This gift was very meaningful for Ben—we took him to the dollar store where he could chose his own gift from anything in the store. He chose a dinosaur that roars, and sent a thank you card in return. Grandma BerDella must have felt bad about excluding Ben’s sister Madison, so she sent a dollar for Maddie as well. Ben helped Maddie choose a toy as well. In recent years Grandma apologized several times to us about not being able to keep track of all the birthdays. I do not recall her ever missing anyone’s birthday, but she really did not want anyone to feel left out.
• Grandma BerDella and Grandpa Syril had a large back yard with a portion covered with gravel. When we visited them we would go excavating for “Indian ruins” in this gravel—we found lots of small clay pieces which we were able to fit together to form parts of clay pots. Grandma and Grandpa did not seem to mind the mess we must have made as we carried these pieces around.
• Grandma BerDella loved music, and always commented about how she wished she had learned to play the Piano. She was very proud of us when we took piano lessons and loved for us to play some some songs to her. She taught me the “only song she knew,” which was a two-finger version of “Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater,” which I have passed on to our children. Several years ago BerDella won an organ through a drawing at the Senior Citizens’ Center in Richfield. During our next visit with Grandma, she beamed with excitement when she told us, “I have never won anything in my entire life,” and showed us the brand new organ sitting in her living room. She then told us she had been taking lessons and even played a song for us. She loved being able to fulfill one of her life-long dreams.
• Grandma BerDella thrived on familiarity and having a routine in her life. In recent years she loved the companionship and routine that the Senior Citizens’ Center provided. She invited Craig and Anne to come for dinner with her during one of their visits so she could share the wonderful experience with them. She did not like to be away too long for fear that she would loose her spot at the dinner table if she was not there to claim it.
• We loved visiting Grandma and Grandpa Zufelt and staying in their upstairs rooms. The twin beds in Craig’s and Nick’s old room always had electric blankets. Our parents told us not to play with the blankets, but we loved being able to heat up the bed, so we did anyway. The two upstairs rooms were also connected by a walk-through closet. We loved hiding in the closet or using it to travel from one room to the other. In the hall near each of the upstairs rooms, Grandma had hung to poems about what boys and girls are made of. In the living room Grandma and Grandpa had a fireplace for many years. I was very surprised one visit when the fireplace was not there—that is the point that I learned that the fireplace was fake.
• Grandma BerDella always talked about how proud she was of her grandchildren and how bright they are. When I showed interest in science classes, Grandma would tell me that I needed to invent an anti-aging pill so she and Grandpa could stay young. When we visited her this past August to perform a magic show at her assisted living home, she put her great granddaughter, Madison, on the small “seat” of her walker and pushed Madison around the large common room to introduce her to all of the other residents. Everyone could see Grandma BerDella’s pride in her her family.
• Grandma BerDella always had a bowl of candy with chocolates or English toffee or hard candy and loved to share that candy with us. She always had ice cream to share with us when we visited.
• Grandma BerDella taped a paper to the side of her TV on which she had written down the channel numbers for the local stations. When we visited her, we would use this paper to find the shows we wanted to watch. Grandma and Grandpa always watched Johnny Carson and were upset when he retired. While I was in college, Grandma bought a new TV. She must have decided that I needed a TV in my dorm room so she gave me her old one. The paper I had seen for so many years was still on the TV and remained there for all of the time I had the TV. Every time I saw that paper I was reminded of sitting on the floor in the middle of the living room watching shows with Grandma and Grandpa.
• While we were interning in Kentucky Angie and I had to work one day while my parents and Grandpa Dean and Grandma BerDella did some sight seeing in the countryside. Dean and my parents stayed in a hotel and BerDella stayed in our second bedroom at our apartment. We were planning a nice dinner, but needed a few other ingredients for the jello salad. We woke around 5 am and showered. We ran to the grocery store as soon as it opened then returned home to make the jello and go to work. BerDella must not have slept a wink that night for fear she would sleep in and not be ready for the others to pick her up at 9 am. When we returned home to make the jello, BerDella was in the shower before 6 am. She must not have expected us to return, because she apparently didn’t bring any clothes to the bathroom. We soon saw her run across the hallway to her room naked, clutching her towel in front of her, but leaving her backside totally exposed. She dressed and came out to sit on the couch and wait for her ride to come in three hours. We finished our jello and headed to work.