In Sadness, Joy

Yesterday was a very long day. We buckled down and cleaned and organized the garage, which meant clearing out trash, donating the useful stuff, putting up shelving, unpacking boxes, and finding long lost memories.

Like baby shoes, and photographs, and cigar butts, and school mementos, pressed flowers, and even old love letters from Hubby-before-he-was-Hubby. There were wood blocks, and old tiaras, and some old children’s books. But among all the papers and photos, there was one item that brought me to tears: my grandmother’s last letter to me.

I stood in the kitchen, reading the once-elegant and now spidery writing, thinking of the woman who wrote it. She was a very proper woman, who never went outside without a parasol to protect her from the Sun. She taught me to read and write before I started school. She loved to have us entertain her with songs. She loved red flowers, and always had cafe au lait at 3 o’clock.

I stood in the kitchen, reading her last words to me, and thinking about how much it hurt her to lose her independence those last few months of her life. She could have been bitter, but instead chose to be thankful for the small acts of kindness shown to her, and for her correspondences with her grandchildren. Knowing how we had blossomed and how we had our own families made her very happy. She told me it would be her last letter to me, since she could no longer hold a pen. As I read that my heart broke again, knowing how much she enjoyed to write. She passed away a couple of months after that, when I was pregnant with Little One. Oddly enough, Little One has the same love of writing that my grandmother had, along with her disposition! She would have been 110 years old last April 27th.

Time to plant geraniums in the garden, and enjoy the day 🙂