Last Christmas with Grammy

I wrote this on December 24th and didn't write it for my blog and after May 24th I knew I didn't want to share it. But now I want to share it because I don't think poems and writings are made for just one person. They are made for sharing. To spread feelings and bring back memories.

She walks in, slowly and eases into a stiff wooden chair.

Her walker is moved to a corner, far out of reach.

The children run around, moving constantly.

She leans back, tired, breaking into a cracker with a cheese spread. She has a little bourbon with a lot of water.

I sit down and talk to her, we talk every Christmas. Each year it’s a different topic. This year its college. How do I like it? Did it take a while to get aquianted, etc.

All I want to do is ask questions. In the time I don’t see her I think of questions.

Questions of the past.

I think of questions at the most unlikely of times, walking to class, taking a shower, falling asleep, watching a movie. I write all these questions down on small scraps of paper, inevitably lose them and can’t remember them once given the opportunity.

King George the sixth- she doesn’t remember anything about him nor does she say she ever followed what was going on with the royal family.

The 1940’s and 50’s- women used self tanner like lotion on their legs when stockings were too expensive and it got all over everything, furniture, clothes, hands, it never dried. So women gave up.

What about drawing eyeliner on the backs of their legs?

That was earlier, but when there were sales on stockings, women lined up and it became a massacre (massacre wasn’t her choice of words, but it was something along those lines).

She moves from the stiff wooden chair where children are running and dancing nonstop to another wooden chair to eat dinner. I eat in a separate room.

After dinner she moves into the living room, it’s a process.

She sits down for a third time now in a comfortable winged chair near the doorway. Her walker is moved again, far away this time in a different room.

I sit next to her and we talk.

As people open presents I notice her feet in her small black lace up sneakers. Her black translucent socks rolled over. Her ankles chaffing. I imagine her dancing in the 30’s and 40’s.  Her now slow feet swirling around a room in a shin length dress in a pale blue, patent red shoes, a band in the background.

We talk about the 40’s and 50’s, the dresses, the fashion.

I show her my dress from the President’s Ball and she liked its pale pink color and 1940’s shape.

She stands up to leave from her 100^th Christmas Eve, not coming Christmas Day and I take her coffee cup, bringing to the kitchen.
I wonder how many things her tired hands have held, a rattle, a blanket, hugging her Mother, Harry’s hand, Grandpa, cupcakes, paintings, shaking hands and many other things.

She gets help walking to the door and as she leaves I can’t help but think of all the things that happened in her life, so many moments, memories, people who have come and gone, Christmas’ and each new year.

Year after year I am thankful for the time I get to spend with her. Each year is more and more precious. One more year she is here.

And I’ll remember her like this. Old, folding over, needing help with everything.

But she was once a child, laughing, running around, free to roam. She was a teenager, sneaking off at night, climbing through her second story window (at least that’s how I imagine it). She was a young adult, middle aged. Watched her son grow, then her grandchildren and now her great grandchildren. But I won’t remember her that way. I’ll imagine her now, like this forever. But I’d like to imagine her dancing forever with Harry in her light blue dress, and patent red heals with a swing band, dancing forever.

~ Because someone we love is up in Heaven, there's a little bit of Heaven in our home. ~