Grammy

I only have one grandmother now. I lost my other grandmother (Nana) when I was still in High School. God, I still miss Nana constantly, especially around Christmas, when I still attempt, in vain, to re-create her cut out cookies. She took that recipe with her when she left this world . . . We will have a talk about that eventually.

Anyway, I still have Grams, who gives me some of the best material for thinking. Grams is . . . well, one never reveals a woman's age . . . We'll just say that she is well down the road of the Presidential letter recognition path. Of course, for a woman who spent the majority of her life supporting the Republican party, I think she is just going to keep living until "her" President can sign that famous milestone letter.

Anyway, I digress. . . Grams used to scare the heck out of me. Ok yes, she is all of 4 feet 10 inches tall and she used to ask Mike and I to sit down before she launched a lecture at us. . . She was freaking scary!

Now, well, Grams can still scare me with just a look. But the light in her eyes is different, and the memories in her head, well, they are fading. The fear I have is different. . .I fear I am going to lose her before I am ready to. So any more, I try to memorize every thing she does and says. It is not hard because there is a lot of repeating now. . .the same stories, the same memories. I don't think I will ever get enough.

Best of all, she still remembers how to make my Mom speechless.

Recently, Mom and Grams were going another round on faith and the afterlife. Mom was trying to tell Grams that she needed to watch her P's and Q's if she wanted to see all her family and friends in the hereafter.

Grams, without missing a beat, looked at Mom and said "How do you know I am going up there? I want to go below. . .I'll know more people down there."

I don't know what made me laugh more. . .the look on my Mom's face, or the purity and blessed simplicity of my Grams reasoning.

Either way, that is a memory that can be repeated, for all I care, until the end of time.