For Grandma E

Grandma E

A farmer's wife, mother of six
An old farmhouse that functioned like clock work, when food was on the table for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
And she, Grandma E made time somewhere between loving, mothering, hearty meals and meticulous needlepoint; she wrote.
The cursive loops of her O's were beautiful
And there was a rhythm to all she wrote
Today, I write,
To connect with her, to connect with myself.

I often think of the house that is no longer there
Of the large kitchen table
The narrow, curved staircase leading to the upstairs bedrooms
Of the closet my cousin and I once got locked in (for what seemed like hours, though probably wasn't?!?)

The summers spent on the farm played landscape to my childhood; fields of green and gold
Air, that when inhaled, healed the heart
The crab apple tree perfect for climbing
And their taste that puckered our faces, (yet we kept eating them)
Grandma E somehow found a way to turn their tartness into the best Crab Apple jelly around (maybe because of the love she used to make it?)

Walking through the open pasture where no cows roamed
Or climbing into the corn crib all the way to the top
Or building up the courage to climb the wooden ladder to the barn, seeing the empty cattle stalls from high above
I felt like an explorer of the world

The smell of lilac bushes by the back door
A place where laundry hung to dry, soaked with the setting sun
Oh, and the davenport,
Which as child I always thought was the porch. Years later finding out a davenport is actually a couch. I just knew it was where grandpa went to have his afternoon nap.

And I remember dancing; in the large upstairs bedroom
Sun beams streaming in through the window
Catching the flecks of dust that swirled around me
With a flowing white dress, I twirled
Never feeling dizzy, Just... alive

In all of this, she was there; a constant
And even years later when grandpa stopped plowing the fields or herding the cows, supper was still at 6 pm
It was how the household worked
And I admit, I was too young to understand it all
I didn't get to ask enough questions
There wasn't wisdom there to appreciate all she did and was

And in someway
The dancing, this writing and my thoughts
I find myself connecting to her, to Grandma E
To the parts of myself that long for her warm hug one more time
For her rosy lips to graze my cheeks
To have her chuckle graze my ears
And for me to see her and her life in another way

I wonder...
Did she write about family? About art? About love?
Did her cursive handwriting pour out memories of her own childhood? Was God revealed in her words? And did she find the sacred connection when pen was put to paper?

She is part of me, part of who I am today
And though I don't know all that she wrote
I find when I write,
I connect to her,
To the sacred

That on this Sun day morning
As the light streams through my own living room windows
And the breeze rustles the curtains
I wonder, if I just stood up to dance
Might I feel what I did then... alive?