Grandma's Heart

 I look down at Jaren with red eyes and blanket in hand, and reach my arms out to him and he reaches his to mine.  I swoop him up into my arms, wrap his blue blanket around him and cuddle him close.  "I'm chilled, Grandma," says this little three year old to me.  "I know, Sweetheart, you are sick with a fever and it's causing you to be chilled."  His head rests against me content for the moment with my lap as his mother is occupied with the baby, Oliver.    I hold a sippy cup to his mouth and he drinks from it and I hold him a little tighter rocking gently back and forth with him trying to bring comfort to this precious grandson of mine.

The other day I had given Evelyn and him stickers to play with.  He had placed all but three stickers on his pages and I asked him what he was going to do with the last three stickers.  He said, "I'm saving them for Mommy."  I turned back to my computer and a moment later Jaren was standing there reaching up to me handing me a sticker.  The sticker remains on the speaker that sits on my desk.  My heart bursts.

Ray and I were sitting in a love seat watching a Christmas movie while the kids were playing games around the table.  Aspen climbed up between us and laid her head against me.  I reached my arm around her as I gently ran my fingers through her hair.  Quiet, content, love filled the room.  She sat there for the longest time as I marveled at the closeness we share though this granddaughter lives so far away and seldom sees me.

Gifts!  I am surrounded by them.  That wry smile on Stuart's face, yea, the one that beacons me to see him as someone special.   I do.  He is a first, first boy, firstborn grandchild, first grandson, first to climb to the top of the pine tree as it swayed dangerously back and forth at just four years old, first to stop my heart, first...

He'll be the first to graduate in the spring.  My heart stands still for a moment.  Stop.  Stop please.  Tears.  This tall young man that reads thick books, plays video games, rock climbs, with the messed up hair and unshaven face... where are you headed young man?  As you fly your toy helicopter that Laura got you, where are you headed?  More tears.  I can't hold on and I don't want to hold you down...but I can pray as you venture forth ~ I'll always pray.

School Days

Sitting down to breakfast this morning, I recognized the handwriting on the card even though the return address was covered up.  The same handwriting that was on so many of those notes we passed back and forth during school days.  I would recognize it anywhere.  It was Diane's, one of my oldest and dearest friends, having met when we were just starting junior high when we shared the same bus from the elementary school to the high school.  We have remained close friends ever since.  She was there when Shannon was born.  We shared our first apartment together.  She received her cosmetology license before graduating from high school and was the first to cut my long hair into a short pageboy like Tennille's of Captain and Tennille.  I went to my first concert, America, with her.  I was there when Charlie rode up on his motorcycle trying to steal her away.  I was maid of honor in her wedding and have the pictures of tripping and putting my hat back into place with my necklace still askew, to prove it, and she was maid of honor at mine.  We have a long history together and I think anyone that is interested in our high school antics would like to know one particular story about us.

We decided to skip class one day and thought we'd spend our great adventure in the "ladies room" instead of class.  Why?  I couldn't tell you.  Who knows why kids do the things they do?  Anyway, here we were in the ladies room, the first place the office personnel would check every hour and we knew it.  We had to make a plan of excuse or the next day we would be in trouble for not having a pink slip to get back into class.  The plan was one of us would pretend to be crying, as the other one was consoling, over the loss of a boyfriend.

I said something to this effect, "Diane, I will have to be the one crying or you know I will laugh.  You will have to be the serious one because you can control yourself better..."  Then, I went into play-rolling with my head in my hands pretending to cry just as the office secretary entered the room.  Diane was so cool.  She instantly went into action, patting my back and saying, "it will be alright, Linda...," as she explained to the secretary about the sorry sap that had dared to break my heart. With my head still in my hands, I started laughing so hard my body was jerking as the tears flew, much as I am doing right now just recalling the incident.  The guttural sounds spewing forth from me and the gasps for air, could very easily have been a young person in the agony of gut wrenching pain rather than the uncontrolled laughter of a teenager.  It was so compelling. The similarity between  responses evoked from different ends of the spectrum could clearly be seen here.

The poor secretary, having witnessed such devastating emotions, readily gave us a pink slip the next morning to return to class without penalty, leaving us in wild exhilaration over the most dramatic day.