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Dorothy Elizabeth Routly
1915 - 2005

Memorial Service
February 7th, 2005

Tribute by granddaughter Melodie Joy

My Grandmother was one of my only constants.

Moving around all of my life meant that everything was always different. Grandma was always the same. Nearly every Christmas and Thanksgiving she would come and visit. At any house that we lived in where I had a double bed, Grandma and I would sleep together. Even when I had a single bed, I would pull a mat out and sleep on the floor next to her. This became the start to many of our “Traditions,” like her cold feet pressing on my legs and her telling me that if I didn’t stop rolling around that she would move to the couch. As little children each morning Christopher and David would join us with books for Grandma to read to us.

We had a special tradition for Christmas Eve. Once we were in bed, I would make her tell me of her childhood Christmas traditions. I always thought it was so funny that she every year she would get an orange, a potato and a lump of coal in her stocking. She would always end the story by telling me that if she was really lucky she would get one present under the tree.

A few more memories:
• Plastic canvas at Jackson’s Point
• Mini boxes of sugar cereal when we went to visit her
• Her letting me put her hair up in clips and bows
• Her firm grip on my knee during church when I started to get too noisy.
• Mento’s in her purse
• Going to Mert’s cottage
• Knit sweaters with blue, red and white yarn
• How graciously she ate the yogurt soup that I made
• How her tea was to be made with boiled water and how her soup needed to be very hot, not warm
• Warm milk before bed
• How in her last few years I knew that as she held my hand she was saying that she loved me and was proud of me.

Grandma got involved in our lives. While we were in Hamilton at our Corps we were each given a loonie to go out and try to multiply for our Corps building fund. My brothers and I pooled our money together and bought ingredients to make brownies. Grandma made loads and loads of her special brownies for us to sell. Her brownies were the best, none could compare.

Being that my Grandfather died before I was born I had never met him. Although, because of the way that Grandma would talk about him, I feel like I have, and to that I am grateful. A few years ago while visiting Grandma I found an old journal of his from around the time that Marion was born. Grandma always had such a fun way of talking about him that when we started to talk about his response to expecting a child for the first time, she said that she tricked him into it. Mom, Dad and I being rather interested in what she meant asked for her to elaborate. “What did you do?” we asked, to which she responded “I prayed.”

Six years ago came the first time that Grandma wouldn’t be able to fly out to our home and spend Christmas with our family. I was in college at the time and as I couldn’t bare the thought of her spending Christmas alone, I went and spent it with her. I remember sitting with her on Christmas day opening up our presents together not knowing if I would ever get the chance to do it again. She was always so grateful for everything. During that week as I went with her down to the dining room each day, I learned of the many relationships that she had formed. It seemed that in each friendship that she had the person could see the grace of God in her, whether it was with another resident or if it was with a worker.

To Grandma, God wasn’t ever in question. There was no doubt in her mind and in her heart that Jesus loved her and that someday she would be in heaven with him. Last year when Uncle Gord died she asked us why God had to take him home first. We told her that God simply wasn’t done building her mansion. To which she replied, “I don’t even need a bed.” For as long as I remember she talked about going to heaven to be with Grandpa and Jesus. And now after thirty years apart they are together, with Jesus in their mansion.

She has impacted all of our lives, otherwise we wouldn’t be here today. I know that Auntie Marion and Uncle Gord, Mom and Dad, Sharon and Bob, Allison, Ryan, Bob, David, Christopher and I all have a part of her in us, and that we are better people because of the impact she has had on our lives. And I know that although David’s children, Bren, Jace, Joel and Bryce haven’t met her they too will be better people because she has made an impact on their lives as well.

Grandma, we love you, we’ll miss you, and we’ll see you again someday for we know this isn’t good-bye forever.