Tag Archives: Family

Fuchsia Fairy

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DIL asked for suggestions about flowers for a hanging basket near their front door.

When I replied that I thought a fuchsia would be pretty, she snortlaughed and said,
“Ring-ring-ring, 1980s calling, Grandma!”

I had never before thought that a purple-pink fuchsia dated me as being OLD, haha. It was a great joke…UNTIL she saw mine, asked what it was, and I was able to identify this amazing creation as a…fuchsia!

So NOW who’s laughing?

How could anyone not love this delicate ballerina of a flower?

Flower fairy and poem credit to https://flowerfairies.com/

Fuchsia is a dancer
Dancing on her toes,
Clad in red and purple,
By a cottage wall;
Sometimes in a greenhouse,
In frilly white and rose,
Dressed in her best for the fairies’ evening ball!

The Velveteen Rabbit

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I read The Velveteen Rabbit to both Angels and I’m not sure they loved it as much as I did, but it did give us an opportunity to have a chat about my favorite part.

T ran to his bedroom to find his dad’s teddy which now belongs to the kids, so I think they understood the story’s valuable message.

“Like this, Grandma?” “Where Daddy’s puppy chewed on Teddy’s ear?”

“Exactly!” “Teddy’s been loved a lot, hasn’t he?”

T brought Teddy to Dad so he could give him an extra hug. “Hug him, Daddy. He misses you.”

I wish I had a photo of that precious moment, but it’s captured in my heart forever.

“You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby.
But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Margery Williams Bianco – The Velveteen Rabbit, 1923.

Self Portrait

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The Angels love to look through the photos on my phone, especially all the ones I’ve taken of them, of course.

When we clicked on this rose, I told them it was a selfie of ME cos I’m Princess Rosebud. They thought that was funny but being their dad’s kids, they just HAD to disagree…

“Grandma, you are so annoying! You aren’t a REAL princess!”

“Yes, I am.” I replied. “And you are Princess Charlotte and Prince Theodore.”

“Dad, Grandma’s being annoying again!”

OMG did they just tattle about me to my original Angel Boy? That’s too funny.

From the other room, I hear him say, “Mom, stop being annoying.”

I guess that’s going to be my legacy…however, we’re all royalty around here, so I thought I’d share this little joke to start the week.

This particular rose smells as good as she looks. Spicy and sweet, just like me.

I think a backstory needed to explain the origin of being called “annoying”, thanks to my new friend, wonderfully talented author Debbie Russell. I should have explained it in more detail and to be fair to the Angels.

I first began to reference myself that way when I bothered them as they were busy doing things (just to be funny) like standing in front of the TV during a show they were watching and I’d say, “Aren’t I the most annoying Grandma?” and they’d say “Yes, you are! Stop it!” And I’d stop, of course. Also for example, when I’d read a book to them, a book I’d literally read a thousand times before, to make it more interesting for ME, I’d change the names or spice up the story a bit differently, mainly to see if they were paying attention (which they were) and then they’d say, “Read the exact words, Grandma!” which I thought was pretty cute. And then I’d say, “Do you find it annoying when I do that?” The answer was always yes.

The Angels weren’t being disrespectful. Grandma was!

Gift With Purchase

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How does a three year old know me so well?

Her mom purchased a bottle of perfume and it came with a fancy little cosmetic bag full of samples.

Apparently, as the story was told to me, Angel Girl told Mom she had to “save the bag for Grandma” ‘cos “she loves stuff like that.”

She was a thousand percent correct. I LOVE gifts with purchase because it’s like discovering a surprise treasure chest.

How did she know?

I mean, we share the Chanel connection and the ballerina connection, but gift with purchase?

How could this obviously intuitive child see so deeply inside of me?

That’s too much. My heart can’t take it. The joy.

Every single time I use that little bag, I’ll think about my Angel, and smile.

Yup. She gets me.

Left Behind

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I don’t know if it was Freud or someone else who said that there was an underlying subliminal reason why someone leaves things behind at your home, but in the case of my Angels, I love it when they do.

I find and gather up the artifacts to either mail or bring with me on my next visit. They’re like little treasures that attach themselves to memories of a special time.

Thank goodness I didn’t step barefoot on a fierce Ninjago Lego minifigure. I had found another one and mailed it along with random socks and a forgotten light up ball that had rolled under the sofa, but this little guy was exhumed when I changed the sheets and I recalled the morning Angel Boy crawled into bed with me at about 6am.

“Grandma, are you awake? Daddy said I could come down. He’s going surfing.”
“Look at my Legos.This is one of the Ninjagos, LOOK!” “He’s one of my favorites.” “Grandma, can you make me a Ninjago cake?” “You can do it, I know you can.”

“I don’t know, T. I can do a kitty or an owl or a bunny, but a Ninjago cake seems pretty difficult for me.”

“Did you wash my favorite (Ninjago) shirt for me?”

“It’s a bit early for me to handwash your favorite shirt, T. How about breakfast first?”

“Grandma, do you always do the same things every single time you wake up?”

“What’s that, T? What do I do?”

“You put on your glasses, take off your retainers, take a vitamin, and do your inhaler. And then you make coffee.”

“You know what, Angel? That’s exactly what I do, in exactly that order. You are incredibly observant to remember each and every detail. I do those same things every single day at your house and my house. Do you think about that?”

“Yes, I do. I’m hungry. Can I have some apple pie?”

The answer to that was yes. The children know me too well. I approve of apple pie for early breakfast. I wrapped a piece for dad to eat before his dawn patrol surf sesh, too.

Those Angels leave a trail of love behind, that’s the best part.

August Musings

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This poem by Mary Oliver makes me think of the Pacific Northwest where blackberries grow freely on every fence and in every alley and all along the path we take to walk to the Salish Sea.

The Angel kids, as they carefully pick blackberries to avoid thorns, their faces and hands stained purple, turn now and again to share, “Here’s a nice big one for you, Grandma!”

August

When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend

all day among the high
branches, reaching
my ripped arms, thinking

of nothing, cramming
the black honey of summer
into my mouth; all day my body

accepts what it is. In the dark
creeks that run by there is
this thick paw of my life darting among

the black bells, the leaves; there is
this happy tongue.

Generation to Generation

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The last time I traveled to visit the Angels, I packed a bag full of gifts but also a little baggie of steel wool pads infused with soap.

From previous visits, I recalled that there were none and nothing works better on pots and pans and glass dishes than a good scrub with steel wool, one of many life hacks I learned from my mom.

A couple of days after I arrived, DIL asked me where I found them, and when I told her they were packed in my bag and I had brought them, she started laughing.

Apparently, HER mom brought a bag of them from England the last time she visited, and showed DIL how they worked and what a valuable little cleaning tool they were.

I learned it from MY mom and DIL’s mom learned it from her mom, too.

It was a funny moment of cleaning secrets passed down from one generation to another; apparently this new gen can still benefit from the teachings of the elders.

After a little elbow grease, this sixty-year-old pan which originally belonged to my mom and now lives with the kids and is still going strong, will sparkle and shine.

SOS and Brillo to the rescue!

Beauty in Death | Decay and Decompose

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My little angels know how to make Grandma happy. Look what came in the mail, whole and undamaged.

It’s a gigantic, perfectly formed, preserved, and decayed leaf they found in their front yard. It brings me so much joy that the first thing they thought of was that it’s something I would appreciate.

I immediately framed it to admire every day.

March is here, winter shifts to spring, trees are budding and leafing, and it’s important to remember that autumn’s falling leaves were the catalyst to everything new. This leaf died so that more will grow; the inevitable circle of life.

It completely fills out an 8.5 x 11 frame. Isn’t this amazing?

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I don’t know why the wall looks yellow cos it’s not.

“I want to go home.”

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I had an unsettling dream. I had originally awakened just before six a.m. and thought I’d meditate but I made the mistake of laying my head back down on the pillow and fell asleep for about thirty more minutes.

BIG mistake.

I remember bits and pieces of this dream but am losing the main narrative. Dreams are so ephemeral; they swirl out of my mind like smoke from a bundle of sage. I’m hurrying to write it down before the details disappear forever.

My mom decided she wanted to move to another city. I can’t remember the reason but I went with her. I recall that I was moving away from the angels who lived in the city we were leaving and why I would do that that made absolutely no no sense to me, but I did it anyway. This was weird and out of character behavior because in real life, my mom lived with us here in this house. She wasn’t the type of person to encourage me to abandon my family.

There are decades and lives that are not aligned in reality — my mom died years before there were any angels and I don’t live in the Pacific Northwest like they do, but dreams shapeshift and time travel, so in that regard I guess it all makes sense. Sort of.

On the whole, I like to stay put, I like security, I love the adventure of travel but I also like to have an anchor to bring me back, a safe haven, a sanctuary. I don’t really take risks like packing up all my stuff and moving away forever. For me, there’s no place like home.

Back to the dream…we found a house to rent and I was engrossed in decorating my bedroom in pink and lavender (details!) but I wasn’t happy. I was yearning for HOME. I can’t explain WHY but there were roommates and I stayed in my room because I like solitude. I missed the angels. Oh, my bed was a narrow hospital bed with a handcrank, not sure why; maybe it was already there in the room because I wasn’t sick, not in the dream.

My mom suggested we attend some kind of outdoor activity–I can’t recall if it was a theme park or a street fair or a sports game (things she HATED in real life) but I went with her.

I got lost and separated from her because it was too noisy and I became disoriented. A little boy about T’s age was lost too but he had a better sense of direction than I did and helped us both find the exit where I found my mom waiting for me. I remember thinking that I should escort the little boy to his grownups, but in my dream, he kind of vanished. I guess he was there to help me, not the other way around,

I told her, “I want to go home. I really want to go home. I really need to go home.”

She said “OK” and we immediately started packing to return home.

After that, I woke up with the strongest message in my head, “I want to go home.” As soon as I opened my eyes before I was fully awake, I repeated it out loud to myself.

But I AM home.

I already know there’s no place like home. It’s very special to me.

What was that all about?

Happy Birthday, Mommy

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She’d be 107 years old today. I miss her more than she probably ever imagined.

Her legacy endures because Angel Boy 1.0 and DIL named Angel Girl after her. They have photos of her at their home and both children know who she is and how much of an honor it is to be named for her. She’s Daddy’s grandma, Grandma’s mommy.

Since my mom was an absolutely amazing grandma, I try to emulate some of the same things she did with my son; have endless patience with laser focused attention, play with them forEVER, and take each of them solo toy shopping.

“Look what Grandma got me, Mommy! Grandma said I could get ANYTHING I wanted” as my son showed me one Matchbox car, the only thing he chose. (He always was frugal!)

I knew it wasn’t the object that made him happy, it was spending time with Grandma that was fun and special. And important.

Happy Birthday! I wish we all had more time with her, that’s for sure.

Driving around doing errands this morning, I heard one of her favorite songs at least three times, a message for sure! She loved Prince’s When Doves Cry, and so do I.