Something Blue

Something Blue....

Sometimes the colour blue refers to your mood....

Many of my earliest memories are of my grandmother. My name is a combination of her name and my mothers name. I have always felt a strong connection to grandma. I turned to her for advice, comfort and of course, recipes. We shared a love of reading and often traded books. We both enjoyed writing. She kept journals of trips she had taken and I kept journals of my life (which coincidentally has been quite a trip).

Known for being no- nonsense and very direct with her words I guess it could have been easy to miss grandma's tender side. But I knew it well.

I have memories of sitting on the couch crying quietly as my grandmother rubbed my aching legs. "Growing pains" we called them. Grandma said that she had them as a child too. She would sit beside me, stroking my legs and speaking to me in her soothing voice.

I remember many times just sitting at her feet and laying my head in her lap and letting her stroke my face with her soft hands. Even as a grown woman I thought nothing of doing this. Nothing was more reassuring or calming than my grandmothers touch.

Grandma taught me that strength is quiet and persistent. Grandma lost her own mother at a young age. Her younger brother had muscular dystrophy and died while my grandmother was newly married. Not long after, her father died. Though her young life had been wrought with tragedy, my grandmother forged on. She raised four children of her own and kept up with my grandfather despite the fact that she suffered with a limp. She had broken her leg as a young child and it was set improperly causing her to limp and eventually walk with a cane.I don't ever remember grandma complaining or feeling sorry for herself.

Grandma was a force. She truly was. She was fiercely protective of her family and yet not afraid to voice her opinions about said family either. You may not agree with grandma, but you were going to hear her thoughts. End of story.

When it became obvious to me that grandma was going to die on the sixth day she was in the hospital, I couldn't form all the questions I wanted to ask. I couldn't stop crying long enough to say all I wanted to say.  So I just laid my cheek on hers and I held her hand because she was too weak to touch my face with hers. I told her what a wonderful grandmother she had been. She said something that still plays through my head on a daily basis. She said, "There are things I would have done differently."

Maybe we will all think something similar when we realize we are about to draw our last breath. Maybe. But at that moment I thought back on all I knew about my grandmother. Her love of reading. How much she enjoyed school. Her desire to travel. How she had loved riding her bike as a child before the injury to her leg. Her love of the city. The lost love pictured in her scrap book.... I imagined all that my grandmother could have been. All she could have done. I thought of the life she had lived as a diligent wife and mother.

 As I sit here six days before the day I will marry the woman that I love, I think of my grandmother. I wonder if she is watching me? I wonder if she would be happy for me?

The dress I will be wearing is a lovely colour of blue. My mother's favourite colour. Though my mother will not be attending my wedding, the dress makes me feel as if she will be there in some small way.

My grandmother will be there in my heart because that is where she always is. And when I stand in front of our guests next Saturday, October 5th, I will imagine my grandmothers soft hand on my cheek and her words in my ear, "There are things I would have done differently."  Me too, grandma and today, I am...

Sometimes the colour blue refers to a new start..the blue sky after the rain..