Walking the Wall

**NOTE: As of Thursday, 7/13 my grandma is home and doing well, she has some decisions to make and recovery will take some time, but she’s home. Strong woman.

I’m worried about my grandma tonight and I can’t sleep. I know in my head that it is foolish to worry, my worry won’t change anything and she certainly wouldn’t want me up and agitated. She had a difficult surgery today and faces a difficult recovery–and she just turned 90 years…but she is truly young. It is impossible to think of my grandma as old, she has had good health, she goes to mass every day, she goes to the nursing home to give out communion, she crochets constantly, making so many hats for Head Huggers.

We spent so much time at my grandma’s growing up, she lived an hour and a half from us in a little fishing town off of Lake Erie, but it seemed that a weekend wouldn’t pass by without our going "home". I’ve talked before about how it is funny how it is the little memories that gain so much importance and become stuck in our minds over the years–not the big, brightlight memories–but the little special ones:

   
• She kept a jar of pickles around for me when I was a little girl knowing how much I loved pickles.

   

• Watching her make pounds and pounds of fudge for the Fish Festival year after year.

   

• Taking my turn turning the handle for home made bananna ice cream.

   

• Cringing when she’d ask me for a can of vegetables down in the depths of her creepy creepy basement.

   

• Getting the chicken pox when I was at her house and laying on the couch while my aunts and uncles painted the house a fresh coat of red.

   

• Watching her crochet snowflakes a mile a minute, I can’t even imagine how many she has made in her lifetime.

   

• Listening her tell the story how her little sister was born and she said she looked like a little golden nugget…the name Nuggie was to stick with her sister until even now. I don’t know what her "real" name is!

   

• The little Lily of the Valley plants she had at the base of the house…little fairy bells that awed me when I was little.

I know that she is going to be fine, she is a strong woman, and I know that even if she isn’t fine–she would be fine with that. She has told me on more than one occassion that she has lived a long life, known love, had nine children, 34 grandchildren, and umpteen great grandchildren, loved God and is ready to go on to the next life when its her time. We grieve and we fear losing our loved ones, not for their sake, but for our own sake, because the world dims when they aren’t in it any more.

If I had to describe my grandmother in one word, it would be gracious. She is gracious and I love her. You are in my thoughts and heart tonight, grandma, I love you, be well, be protected and safe, be pleased and content, may your physical body support you, may your life unfold smoothly with ease.