If you know me well, you know that my grams was very important to me. She was "my person" as some people like to put it. She died 14 years ago.
When I was a kid I spent a lot of time on her and Papa's farm. Gardening, baking, riding in the combine and grain truck, watching movies, sleeping over...laughing and hugging and enjoying life. It was such a huge part of my childhood.
When I was 10, Grandma got sick with cancer. She went through it for ten years and passed away when I was 20 and pregnant. So she never got to meet my son, she hasn't been here to see me grow and heal and become the person I am today. I feel her with me, but she isn't HERE.
Three years ago my partner, son and I moved onto an acreage. I call it a farm, but it isn't a real farm. We have chickens and ducks and dogs, and a big garden, and wide open skies all around us. I've felt like I'm continuing on in Grandma's footsteps in many ways. Picking peas from my garden, for example, takes me back in time 25 years to when I was a kid doing the same in their garden. I plant flowers and I do my best to nurture this little piece of earth that I call home.
I don't have much left of Grandma. A few pieces of jewelry, photographs, memories that fade more and more as time goes on. But earlier this year the woman who bought Grandma and Papa's farm 14 years ago contacted me and asked me if I would like some flower bulbs that were my grandma's. For 14 years something that she had planted, something she nurtured, something she touched with her own two hands, they've been living and thriving all this time. Tulips and lilies.
So today, I planted my Grandma's flowers. From her farm to mine, from her heart to mine. Connecting us through time and space. It makes me feel like there is a little part of her that is still alive, still here. A little part of her that I can touch and see and smell. Because I miss those things about her so deeply. Her laugh and her smile and her hugs. My five senses can't remember those things any more. I can't hear her giggle in my ears...I can't remember it...but I know the little ways that those things made my heart smile. The little parts of people that we sometimes take for granted. The special parts.
As I was sorting through the bulbs and digging in the dirt, I talked to her. I told her I wasn't sure what I was doing, I've never planted bulbs before. I talked about where I was planting them and I told her I sure hope they sprout up in the spring time. I talked because I know she is here in spirit. I know she sees me, and I know she sees where I am and what I'm doing, and I know she has watched as I've raised a son, and I know she knows I am doing my best. She shines down on me and she moves beside me as I do the things she used to do. She's with me when I garden, when I go for a walk down our country road, when I bake rice krispy cake, when I feed and nurture my family.
She's in the flowers I planted. Her flowers that will now live on with me.
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