To your hearts

Music: Come Undone - Duran Duran

My grandma's still in the hospital...last night she needed a blood transfusion. She seems to be getting sicker, the longer she's in there.
I'd rather talk about how amazing my grandma is...I've covered a lot of ground here, though, so I may repeat myself.

1. My afghan. You have to see it to appreciate it. It's huge, every color of the rainbow, and some kind of complicated pattern...Moma has made many afghans over the years, but mine is the most special and beautiful thing ever. You would think I was the favorite, it's that beautiful. She loves me, and every night when I sleep under the afghan she made for me so many years ago, I'm reminded of it.

2. My books. My parents moved me away to Germany when I was ten and it devastated me to be away from my grandma, and it devastated her, too. She sent me letters, and tapes, and books... Every single book was a special, huge classic book, with an inscription inside from her telling me how much she loved me. The Little House books, Little Women, Heidi, Ballet Shoes, and more, these books still populate my bookshelf, and remind me of the time when we may have been separated by distance, but she refused to let me forget how much we loved each other.

3. Travel. I've seen so many different places, most of it thanks to my grandmother. She herself has been to 46 states and nine countries. She decides she wants to see a place and just...goes there. And sometimes, if I'm around, I'm lucky enough to get to go, too. Otherwise, I might catch her when she gets back and she says, oh, I drove to so-and-so for the week, it was great. !!!

4. Hair. I have very long, curly brown hair. My grandmother is directly responsible for this, as she kept cutting all my hair off every time she ever got me alone. You can see in photo albums from my childhood when my summer-long stays at Moma's house were, because the 'before' pictures always showed me with long tangled hair, and the 'after' pictures were always me with short hair looking like a boy, with a very sad look on my face. I rebelled at eighth grade and said no more haircuts and I meant it, I've never had short hair again. And it's all her fault.

And she is still trying to this day, I don't think a conversation goes by without her mentioning haircut this or haircut that, or how good I'd look with short hair, etc. When my grandma doesn't get her way she never stops trying until she does get her way. Every conversation, every day, forever.

5. Inspiration. She didn't go beyond the eighth grade, but she studied and got her GED. She was the daughter of a tobacco farmer, born and raised in the holler, and she married and divorced and at twenty-two was a single mom. She made the hard decision to leave the babies with her mom while she left the holler and went north to work, and then when she had made enough to buy a house, she moved the babies and her mom up north to Louisville to live. My grandma was the original working, single mom, way before it became fashionable. She's the strongest person I know.

Yes, we just have to remember that...she's the strongest person we know.