Dear Number 7 (Thanks for the memories Great Gma)

Dear Number 7,

Of all the kids in our family, you were the only one that Great Gma never had the chance to hold.

By the time you were born, she didn’t really have the strength to cradle a little baby anymore.

And I know she was bummed about that.

Because there is no one who liked babies more than your Great Gma.

She loooooooooved babies.

And she loved you.

Even if she wasn’t able to hold you.

For the past two years I’ve been feeling bad, thinking that Great Gma missed out.

Sad that she never had that opportunity to look down at your little face while she held you in her lap.

But now I’m realizing that it’s really more the other way around.

Yes, she missed out.

But the person who really missed out is you.

Because in the future, when I say the name Great Gma, you won’t have any recollection of her.

You won’t remember her very pretty face.

You won’t have those memories of the special things she liked to do with her grandkids and great grandkids like I do, and like some of your older brothers and sisters do.

Or won’t you?

Why couldn’t you?

I mean, I could help you remember her face.

That’s easy.

We’ll get you a picture.

But what about the other things?

Can you have memories of the other things?

Well, you can’t do them with Great Gma.

But you can do them with me.

So, first, a little background.

Great Gma was a wonderful writer.

Not many people know that about her.

And she really valued a handwritten note.

Every single holiday there would be a card in the mailbox waiting for me.

On the outside of the envelope there was always at least one sticker.

And inside, when I opened the card, there would be a message.

It was always written in pictures.

Like a picture of an eye, and a heart, and the letter “u.”

You know, to say

I. love. you.

There was almost always a coin, or a foil-wrapped piece of gum,

or,

if you were really lucky,

both, 

taped to the inside.

And then it would be signed,

XOXO,

Gma

And that is how she came to be referred to as Gma, and then, when some of us grandkids had children, Great Gma.

There was nothing like getting one of her cards.

You may not get one from her, but I will make sure you still get them.

That is one memory that every kid should have.

In this age of texts, and Facebook, and Twitter,and iPads, Great Gma never forgot the joy of opening up the mailbox and pulling out a fancy, decorated, and personalized envelope.

In fact, Great Gma was really good at keeping things simple.

She appreciated the littlest of things.

In a few years, when you are old enough to really read and understand this letter, I’m not sure what the buzzword will be.

But right now, it is mindfullness.

Your great gma was a mindful lady.

Great Gma’s house was only a mile away from my house when I was a kid.

From Grammy and Papa’s house.

I spent a lot of time there.

One day, we went out into her backyard, and we looked for a big flat rock.

When we had found one, she placed it next to the trunk of a tree, and she said to me,

“This can be your thinking spot. If you ever need some time to just sit and think, you can come sit here in this special spot.”

Yep.

Your great gma could even make a rock special.

Who couldn’t use their own thinking spot?

Great Gma would want us to each have one.

And so we will.

And when we each find our special thinking spot, we will think of her.

Now in a few years when I become rich and famous, there is something I am going to do.

I am going to buy Great Gma’s house.

I’m not kidding.

I am going to walk up to the front door, knock on it, and tell whoever is living there that I would like to buy her house.

And then we will do some more things I used to do with Great Gma.

We will walk down to the train tracks behind her house and put pennies and quarters on the tracks.

And then we will wait.

And as soon as the rumble of the train passes, we will run down the hill and get the pennies.

We will feel how smooth they are, and begin a collection.

Then we’ll go for a walk.

We will take a walk across the bridge by Great Gma’s house, and look through the little squares in the wire mesh on the sides of the bridge,  and we will watch what is going on in the parking lot of the old factory.

If we are lucky, and we see a bulldozer down there, I will say to you,

“Look at the buggies!”

We will look at each other and open our eyes and our mouths as wide as we can, with pure joy and excitement.

Over a piece of heavy machinery.

Yep.

Rocks and bulldozers.

Your great gma made rocks and bulldozers exciting.

For a little girl.

She was the best.

On the walk back to her house from the bridge, we will look for some Queen Anne’s lace.

We will pick some, and we will take them back to her house.

We will get out some old mason jars and milk bottles, and we’ll fill them with water.

Then, we’ll find the food coloring, and I will let you squeeze a few drops into each jar.

You will feel like a really big girl.

We’ll make the water in one jar red, the water in another jar blue, and the water in another jar green.

We’ll put a Queen Anne’s lace flower in each jar on the dining room table, and then we will wait.

While we wait, we’ll go into the kitchen and have a snack.

I will cut up carrots and put olives on top of them. I’ll tell you they are lollipops.

And you will believe me.

I will slice up apples and put a little bit of salt on them.

I know. It sounds gross, but it’s actually really yummy.

I will make you peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but I won’t cut off the crusts.

I will tell you that is where all the vitamins are.

You will believe that too.

Then, we will sit at the table and eat.

And we will drink juice out of old Welch’s jelly jars with pictures of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd and Sylvester the Cat on the sides.

We will talk.

And laugh.

And when we are done, we will go back into the dining room.

We will look at the Queen Anne’s lace.

And something magical will have happened.

The flowers will be blue!

And red!

And green!

And then we will take those flowers home to our house.

Just like I did when I was little.

When I put you into your nap you can keep those flowers in your room.

You can look at them as you drift off to sleep, while I sit next to you on the bed, rub your back, and sing you a song.

One day when you are older, I will explain to you that the reason why I do this before you go to sleep is because this is the same thing Great Gma did to me when I took a nap at her house up in Papa’s old bed.

Hush Little Baby, Don’t Say a Word…

And when you have all the words memorized to that song and we sing it together, we will both think of Great Gma.

You don’t know this yet, but the house behind Grammy and Papa’s house, where I grew up, is the house where Great Gma grew up.

That’s where your great great gma lived.

We called her Nanny.

When Nanny was very old, Great Gma would come up to her house to help her out.

I would walk up the path in the woods behind Grammy and Papa’s house, up to Nanny’s house, to visit.

Sometimes in the Spring, Great Gma would take a break and we would take a walk in the woods.

We would look for lady slippers.

I don’t know if any of those lady slippers still grow back there in the woods, but in the Spring, when the flowers start to bloom, we will go look.

Just like I did with Great Gma.

Now on the outside, and to people who didn’t know her very well, your Great Gma may have seemed to have a lot in common with those lady slippers.

She was very pretty, and she appeared to be delicate.

But your great gma was a tough lady.

While she was kind and caring and gentle,

if she saw an ant crawling across the floor, she didn’t hesitate to pick it up between her bare fingers and squish it.

She used to do that all the time.

She was tough in other ways.

I remember once being at her house and sitting in the kitchen.

She had this stool next to the stove with a seat that swiveled.

I was sitting on that stool, swinging myself  to the right and to the left, and watching Great Gma make dinner.

She opened up the up the cabinet next to me to get out a pot.

The handle on it was broken.

I asked her what had happened to it.

She replied with,

“It broke.

When I threw it at your grandfather.”

I made a mental note to myself right there.

Do not piss off Gma.

Your Great Gma also didn’t have her driver’s license.

In those days when she would come up to take care of Nanny, she would walk up to the house.

It wasn’t that long of a walk, only a mile,  but in the winter, it wasn’t that fun.

And so, upon the prodding and eventual insistence of your aunt,

Great Gma got her driver’s license.

She was probably around 65 years old.

That’s a pretty tough and gutsy thing to do at that age.

Now she wasn’t a very good driver.

About a month after she got her license, she ran over a kid who was riding his bike.

He was okay.

Just a little bruised.

Like Gma’s ego.

It didn’t stop her though.

The last time I saw her operating a car was after she had come to the house for a visit.

I said goodbye to her and stood at the end of our driveway, watching and waving as she drove down the road, crossing the yellow line multiple times, swerving from one side of the road to the other, and narrowly missing two telephone poles and several mailboxes.

I think that may have been the last time she ever drove a car.

So, Number 7,

perhaps the roads are a little bit better off now that Great Gma has left them,

but the planet sure isn’t.

And while I am so sad that you will never get to know her,

I’m grateful that she has given me so many memories that I can pass down to you.

And so today we will move forward.

We will honor her by taking risks,

and, if need be,

throwing a frying pan or two.

We will use the words “cunnin” to describe something cute, and “rascal”  and “full of beans” to describe you when you are misbehaving.

We will remember her by enjoying the small things.

We will appreciate the beauty in the flowers,

the face of a smiling baby,

a carrot and olive lollipop,

and the comfort of a back rub and quiet song.

Just like Great Gma,

we will squeeze enjoyment out of the simplest of things in life,

leaving a trail of happy and abundant memories for our grandchildren to follow.