Love is Grand

Today is an impossibly beautiful spring day. It's cool (for Georgia), low humidity, the wind is gently blowing and my two (count 'em) lovely windchimes are speaking to one another on the front porch. I turned on all the fountains and I've got the front door open, where I can hear the water bubbling and the chimes talking. It's reminding me of our visits, many years ago, to Grandma Betty's house. She lived her last years in Kankakee, Illinois in a home that she and her husband built on a big corner lot, surrounded by trees and countryside. Several magical summers, we would go for a long stay. She worked for a book publisher, and would have boxes of books for our reading pleasure while we were there. We kids usually slept on the living room floor, sometimes for two weeks. The days were long and languid, full of dreaming and reading. My sister, Melanie, and I would explore the fields near her house. There was something secure and dreamy to me about those days. She had a fancy stereo in her living room, where we would play records. In those days, music was a priceless commodity. It was played on flat plastic disks that you had to be careful not to scratch (in case you don't know). Now we have every color and stripe of musical genre imagineable, but back then we had to buy those individual recordings, treasures to be safeguarded. She had the soundtrack from Oliver! and we played it until the adults were losing their minds. To this day, I can still sing every song from it. Sometimes I belt out "Who Will Buy?" -- imagining myself sashaying through the London streets with my basket of roses. I connect the whole album to my dear Grandma, who was anything but provincial. She was glamorous, smart, cultured and classy. Listening to that song this morning, my eyes smart with the missing of her. She only got to see one of my babies before she passed suddenly all those years ago. It is inexplicable, the unconditional love that flows from a good Grandmother to her grandchildren. I understand that now, as a Yaya myself. The link, the eye hook that passes between us. I only got to see her maybe once or twice a year, but I knew she thought I was the best thing since sliced bread. It still serves me. I pray that I can give that to my own precious grandchildren.