Dinner's Ready...Grandma Doris' Mac and Cheese

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You are here looking for a great recipe, right?

I mean, I posted in the title "Grandma Doris' Mac and Cheese"...

Well, first~you have to listen to a story...

I'll try to be quick, but we'll see how it goes.

Growing up, my "Biological" Grandparents lived in another state, hours away. Both sets of Grandparents. They also were quite elderly, and all had passed away by the time I was eight.

But God has a way of giving you what you need...and for our family, it was a Grandparent.

We were sitting at the local ice cream shop one summer when I was around six years old, when my dad struck up a conversation with an older lady with salt-and-pepper hair who was sitting with her granddaughter about the age of my sister and I.

Somehow my dad ended up inviting this lady over to our house for dinner and church one Sunday. (If you knew my dad-you would know that this is JUST like him to meet a new friend where ever he went! To this day, he still is meeting a stranger, and making a friend...)

This lady ended up coming for Sunday dinner, and ending up staying in our lives forever.

"Grandma Doris" as she quickly became called in our family-

never wore a pair of pants in her life, but always a dress or skirt-

never rode a bike,

had an arranged marriage,

was the mother of five boys,

was from Armenia, and lived through the genocide there.

By the time we met her, she was a widow, and her five sons were grown with families of their own. She had a parcel of grandchildren, but so graciously made room for two more-my sister and I. She also took my mother under her wing, and became a "substitute mother" to her as her dear mom had recently passed away.

We spent Christmases, birthdays, and many home-cooked Armenian Sunday dinners at Grandma Doris' home. We met her family, and played with her grandchildren for many, many years. My sister and I even spent the night with her on several occasions.

As my Grammie met a special someone and later married, my parents stood up for them at the wedding. And three years later, we stood with Grandma Doris and her family as we burried her beloved second husband...

By the time I started high school, Grandma Doris and I had our own traditions. We both loved "Romance". She would pass on movies that she had taped on TV for me, and we traded our favorite romance novels back and forth. We waited for the sequel to "Gone With The Wind", and shared a copy of it, and then discussed what we thought about it (-not worth the wait-).

When I started college, and Grandma Doris was nearing eighty, I noticed that she had started slowing down just slightly. However-this did not stop her from writing me a letter at the University each week, and inviting me over for dinner so we could spend time together. (My college apartment was only about forty minutes away-so we had dinner every month.) She wasn't making a full course Armenian dinner at this point, but instead, we had her Macaroni and Cheese on TV trays while we watched a movie she had taped for the two of us on her VCR. We fast forwarded the commercials, and talked the whole way through the movie...

She prayed with me, and hugged me as I nursed a broken heart towards the end of my junior year in college, and reminded me that God still had a plan for my life, even if it wasn't something I could see. And faithfully, she continued to write me the most encouraging, uplifting letters and cards weekly. Each one signed "Love, Grammie Doris". I still have each one today~carefully packed away...

Right as I was graduating from college, she began having heart trouble, and had surgery. The doctors expected her to make a full recovery, and she was out of the hospital quickly, and in a rehabilitation center near where I had a job interview.

I remember debating whether or not to visit her that day, because I was just planning on seeing her at home for our dinner and a movie night very soon. But something inside me (God!) felt such a deep need to be with her. So, after my interview, (which went well-) I stopped by. She wasn't feeling too good, but asked me about the job, and was excited to see me starting the next chapter in my life. ("See My Dear? I KNEW He had a great plan for your life! He always will, you know.") We talked for a bit, and then Grandma Doris asked me just to read to her until she fell asleep. I grabbed my Bible from my car and spent the afternoon reading to her from the book of Psalms (Her favorite).

She had a stroke that evening, and died soon after.

I was the last person to speak to her.

I was heart broken, as were so many other people-because she made a lasting impression on every single person she met! That was just my Grandma Doris~

She never met my husband (-who she would have adored!) or my boys (-Oh how I wish I would have asked her advice about raising sons-she would have been a very knowledgeable source in many of my dilemmas with these boys!) Sometimes I catch myself looking up towards heaven in a particular happy moment with my family, and think, "Can you belive this? You were right, Grammie! Look at what God has given to me!"

Oh! And her recipe for Macaroni and Cheese?

Stouffer's. In a box. Microwaveable.

It was never about the food-It was always about my love for her...My Grammie Doris~