Grandmothers Are Human, Too, and Sometimes We Mess Up
Love can glue things back together
I should have gotten up and walked through the carport and out into the garden and scooped you up, helping you find your way through without damage. Instead, I was sitting in the sun reading and I was exhausted, besides, so I said something stupid like, “Don’t step on the flowers, Sophie.”
In your joyful exuberance to answer Pop-Pop’s call, you sprang up and ran right through the flower bed where tiny, tender plants were just starting to nose their way above the soil. Tiny, exuberant feet stomped tiny, tender plants, and I shouted “Sophie no! You are stomping on GiGi’s flowers!”
Your face crumpled and you froze for a split-second. I reached over and lifted you out, sitting you down safely on the gravel drive where you ran away, filled with grief and shame.
You are three. You are precious and beautiful, and I cherish you.
You are at the tender age of a seedling human, just beginning to unfurl. All it takes is a stupid adult — one who has forgotten, even for a split second (for that’s all it takes) — to crush you like you crushed my newly emerged bulbs.
Grief upon grief. Yours and mine. A complicated tangle that is teased apart with arms wrapped tight and kisses and words…
