March 30, 2007

Recognition

Everyone likes to think that their parent/grandparent likes them best, but I do have a sneaking suspicion that my brother and I are favorite grandchildren. Maybe it's because we grew up so far away, or because her heart broke for us when our parents divorced. Who knows. But this means by extension that my grandmother has a little love affair with Michael. (Though really - who can blame her? He is a heart snatcher.)

On Saturday night - once Micheal and his parents had left and we'd all eaten dinner - my mother and I went over to MeMe's house to spend a little time with her while she watched the Gaithers. My mom could tell she was feeling down and asked her what was wrong.

"i just know he recognized me," MeMe said. "He knows who I am." She got very quiet and her eyes filled and she said, "I just wish I could see him grow up."
This is a sentiment she has expressed before, but it guts me anew each time I hear it. Life is not long enough and it is never short on people to love. Especially when there are people like her. Babies like him.

Sometime on Sunday night or Monday morning, my grandmother had a minor stroke. Perhaps it happened as my mother was driving me to the airport to fly 500 miles away. Perhaps it happened in her dreams. She told my mom that she felt her mother (my great-grandmother) holding her hand, pulling her along. "I felt my mother's hand," she emphatically replied when her daughters suggested perhaps it was a dream or simply the sensation of her brain misfiring, malfunctioning.

Time doesn't stop. Life circles on and on and on. Don't forget to remember that it's cycling right past you too.

Posted by hannah at 10:43 AM