Friday 24 November 2017

Thinking of my Grandmother

Remembering a school project about asking a family member what it was like when they were younger: What did milk cost? What has changed? Interviewing Grandma at her glass kitchen table, her telling me answers that I recorded on some long-forgotten paper that has now become precious, lost in an inconsequential stream of homework.

I wish I could hear her voice again, her gentle cadence recalling girlhood. I wish I had her answers memorized.

Thinking about conversations on race and religion, knotty topics we'll never butt heads over again.

Seeing my baby son meet his other great-grandma, and wishing my Grandma had that quality time with him, too.

The postcards I bought for her everywhere I traveled but never managed to send. I saved them up to put in an album full of stories she can no longer read.

The autobiographical book of her remembrances on my list for Christmas, unbought and now unnecessary.

A Thanksgiving phone call I didn't make this year. Christmas glistening on the horizon, full of a million reminders of her absence.

Her presence in my heart, her ring on my finger as we drive through autumn near her part of the country. I can't even come close to forgetting.

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