I really want to be in Springfield, Illinois right now. That is where my grandmother is, and I have a feeling that I might not have much more time to hug my sweet grandma and tell her how much she means to me. But logistics…they are so complicated! And by logistics, I mean these (adorable, ultra-loveable) two:
Although this picture looks calm, believe me, it would be a challenge to maintain any semblance of calm around my dear grandma if I trekked to Springfield with these little bundles of energy in tow. So here I am in Salt Lake, and there is nothing I want more right now than to give my grandmother a big hug.
Here’s my current wishlist: To give my grandma a hug, to tell my grandma how much she means to me, and to introduce my grandma to Mary, whom she has only met through Skype. (She met Lydia before we moved to Utah.) I mean, seriously, if this were your daughter, wouldn’t you want your grandma to meet her?
Since I can not have what I want, I guess I can still tell my grandma what she means to me. My mom promised to read her anything I wanted to write her, and so here goes:
Dear Grandma,
I know you are going to say when I tell you you are the world’s best grandma: You are going to ask me if I want a quarter. You always say that! And that’s part of why you are so wonderful. You just go about your quiet, good life without expecting any fanfare or attention.
When I was a child, I looked forward to every single visit at your house. I loved how the smell of freshly baked bread permeated every room, and how at the same time everything smelled so clean. Smelled? Everything WAS clean! Grandma, keeping things clean and tidy might appear to be merely a personality preference, but to a little girl who craved the atmosphere of your home, order felt like virtue. And I really believe that, at least in your circumstance, the two are fused together.
The order of your life always epitomized beauty and virtue to me. I loved the rhythm of life at your house: bread baking, fabric shopping and sewing, reading the comics together over homemade toast, swimming with you at the fancy hotel pool, doing all sorts of Abe Lincon-y stuff (it was Springfield, after all, and good prep for meeting my very own Abe!), practicing the piano at homes and churches you arranged just for my visit, eating canned beet salads with you on the back porch in the humid downstate air, reading late into the night on your sleeping porch, listening to Midwestern nighttime noises from my bed, daydreaming for hours upon hours because there was time.
So. much. time. There was always that luxury at your house. No matter how frantic or rushed or chaotic my life was elsewhere, with you I always felt like I had so much time, I could do crazy things like: spend an hour observing the branches and leaves on your backyard tree. Watch a million episodes of I Love Lucy and Bewitched (you had cable!!!!!!). Put together a jigsaw puzzle. Pick gooseberries from your bushes and then bake a pie with you.
Doesn’t it sound idyllic? Right now there’s a Norman Rockwell exhibit going on in Salt Lake, and I listened to some radio debate on whether his work is too idealistic to be respectable in contemporary circles of cynical snobs. Well, I wish I could have weighed in because I have an opinion, gosh darn it! I love his work because it resonates deeply with what I have experienced in my life with you. I believe that aesthetic resonates with anyone acquainted with the life of an honest, kind, and deeply good soul. Your soul, for one perfectly specific example.
Grandma, right now I just want to wrap myself in that beautiful quilt you sewed me and, well, to be honest…I really want to cry. I want so badly to be with you, to hug you, to tell you so much more than you probably have energy to hear. But you will always be close to my heart and just as close to my thoughts. I know that this is not my last opportunity to tell you what is on my heart because I love you, you love me, and when a grandma is as good as you, she takes peeks from heaven to see what her grandchildren are thinking about. You will see how often I think about you, how much I am trying to be like you, and how I will continually remember you to my children.
Thank you for everything you have given me through your strength, your example and your goodness. Thank you for toiling over, praying for and raising my mother, who turned out to be an angel disguised as a normal person. Thank you for your love and for offering me periods of respite and refuge throughout my life. I know you will always be there for me, and I hope you will feel all of my love when my mom gives you this hug from me.
You make my life so beautiful. I love you, Grandma.