Growing up, I was fortunate to spend a lot of time with Grandma. She was THE baby sitter.
I remember the beautiful old brown toy box in the den with green carpet and all the photo albums. We used to go to her house for Sunday dinners with the whole family when I was little--playing with plastic balls and bats in her yard after lunch. I remember the constant supply of lemon drops in her refrigerator, for you see, Grandma had a sweet tooth.
Since we lived close, Jeff and I spent a lot of time in her yard making exorbitant sums mowing her lawn, picking up sticks and caring for her well-tended flower garden when she couldn't do it herself anymore--$5 was generous!
Grandma raised a family and lived in that house with green canopies and shutters for as long as the block has been there. She was a fixture, and could hardly bear to leave when it became clear that she needed more care--that was her stubbornness.
When I think about who Grandma is as a person though, I don't think about the delicious butterscotch pies she made, or the tomatoes she would eat with sugar, or the myriad gifts she loved to provide her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, or even the way she talked about Grandpa. What comes to mind is how Grandma prayed for and remembered and wrote her family all the time. Even last week, she asked with concern, if I had gotten the card she sent me for my birthday. I don't doubt that we were constantly on her mind.
There was also the way she worried, which I inherited from her in spades. Worry for family. Worry for our well-being, happiness and health. Worry and thought were some of the ways she knew to show love. I know from her eagerness to sit with us and hear about what was new in our lives that each of us had a place in her heart.
I think of that quiet consistency as one of her most salient qualities.
I'm not sure how heaven works. I don't know what she thinks about or how her memory works now--but I'm sure that now her love is free of worry and that it's full for us.
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