This is a web I’ve wanted to make for a long time; this will be, when I’m done, a (modest) tribute to my Grandma Shirley Valentyn, née Shirley Wayne.

My “Gramma” helped raise me – my Mom was just 20 when she had me;

My Grandma was very independent, strong-willed, & free-spirited — she was also the center jewel of our family: Christmases were held under her leadership, at her house.

She loved to read, would read books to me & take me to church. I still remember packing up my little “Going To Grandma’s” toddler suitcase & staying up late watching movies, waking up & going to church.

She used computers before anyone I knew in my family – she had her personal computer she used probably daily – she had a subscription to a monthly software club, where they’d send her software (On Disk Monthly? Something like that); She was using them regularly in the early 1990s as a woman in her late 50’s / early 60’s; she introduced me to them & gave me my first computer & my first Nintendo.

She even played Super Mario Bros. with me: she called them “Marr-io Brothers,” haha; I still remember her playing Mario Bros 3 with me (among the other computer games she played) & thinking she was probably the coolest Grandma I could possible have gotten.

I remember being absolutely head over heels about “going to Gramma’s,” & would fish off her dock & ride scooters & riding lawnmowers, & do New Year’s there with my cousins Marissa & Ashley, & a blue Mickey Mouse fold-up clamshell alarm clock by my bed when I’d sleep.

I remember when she was on her deathbed, literally, at home on a medical bed, she used some of the last of her strength to say, “Joey, you just do whatever you want . . .

Just like when you were young.” That she’d helped raise me makes that bring tears to my eyes, every time; that was her dying wish for me.

I loved my Grandma very much & made a tape of what I thought based on what my Dad said were her favorite songs, along with some ambient works by Brian Eno when she was passing. I also composed a full song for her that she she heard before she left. She was 65 I think, I was 18.

I know – in my way – that she never really left;

Gramma taught me better than that.

Love & Miss her; & I love my Grandpa, her husband, who still is with us, here.

– Joe Valentyn