A Blink of Sixty Years

I awakened this morning after a decent night’s sleep with a new energy I had not felt for quite some time. I love May: beautiful flowers, spring temperatures, baseball in full swing, and this first Saturday in May – the Kentucky Derby. I remembered, too, that May 4 is a significant date. I grabbed a copy of Helen’s Heritage on the bookshelf near my bed and thumbed through the pages. My hunch was correct. May 4 is the anniversary of my grandmother’s death, and today is the 60th anniversary of her passing.

This morning was crisp – temps only in the 40s, but a bright sun had risen and promised to warm up the day. I wonder if that’s the way it was the morning Grandma Rhoda Margaret (Mag) passed on. I know the day before she passed was beautiful and was the last day that she spoke. She saw yellow. She saw spring.

In less than a decade, I will be the age she was when she died, her youngest child has lived almost fifteen years longer than she, and sixty years have passed. How can this all be?

Such is the passage of time, of which we have no control. All we can do is live the best we can today.

I’ve written much about my maternal grandmother over the years in blogs and in both of my books, Reflections and Helen’s Heritage. Of course, she will be in my new book later this year, Someday I Will Write.

I don’t know why I remember so much about her. Goodness, I was only three years old when she died. But let the naysayers think what they will, let me not forget, and let no one take those good memories from me or keep me from writing about them.

Sometimes I wonder if she knows I remember. Does she know that I think about her and write about her? Would she smile?

Mammy – how beautiful you were when you were young.

How beautiful you were in your later years. Look at you here with Daddy.

And how beautiful your baby is today.

Mammy, as you said, what a beautiful yellow!

What a beautiful day to be alive!