My grandmother passed away on Sunday, and yesterday we went back to the town where I grew up for the visitation and service. It was a beautiful service, and good to see my parents and cousins, my brothers, my niece and nephew. So many people came, because she was special to many people during her life.

Yone was her Japanese name and Grace was her American name. She made the most awesome array of artistic Christmas cookies that you can possibly imagine. She taught me to knit, crochet, and needlepoint, but there was one thing that I didn’t know about her until I read the obituary in the paper. She went to the California School of Fashion Design in San Francisco.

I felt terrible that I didn’t know that about her, but she really never liked talking about herself or the past. She was always living in the here and now — driving her friends to church, volunteering for charity, going to her bowling league, and making things.

But the fashion design background explains her impeccable taste, her custom-tailored suits from the fifties that she gave me to wear when I was in college until my waist got too thick to fit (and my bust line never achieved). I have many fabulous hats from her collection, but they are difficult to photograph so I’m thinking about drawing some of them.

Unlike me she had absolutely no problem with clutter. Everything in her house was always tidy, and everything that was stored away in her house was in pristine condition. She was a perfectionist, but when she told me that she liked “lopsided things,” I knew that she meant she liked asymmetry like this Japanese dish she once gave me. I think it’s a bowl for ikabana flower arranging.

As her Reverend said, She was a tough lady who took a lot of hard knocks in life, but it never made her lose her joy for life, sense of humor, and love for others.

This summer in July we’ll go to our annual family reunion and take her ashes to be buried next to my grandfather in a beautiful cemetery on a hill that looks out over the Pacific ocean.