Remembering loved ones

Wood Sprite talks about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. like she knows him personally. She has developed her own Susan B. Anthony money that she uses when we play pretend. As deeply as she feels she knows these people neither of us ever met, I feel like I’m really coming up short introducing her to the people in my life whom I’ve loved and lost, her great-grandmother in particular.

All of our grandmothers are a bit of a mystery to us though, aren’t they? We didn’t know them when they were young and fearless, or maybe even when they were a little older and married or having a career or going on adventures. Many of us know our grandmothers only from one phase of their lives, and all we have is the remembrance of a sparkle in their eyes hinting at so many secrets we’ll never know.

When I think of it like that, it leaves me with a bittersweet feeling. I can never help Wood Sprite know her, because I never really knew her myself—or not all of her, at least. But I knew her during the last two decades of her life, when her voice still chimed like a bell when she sang, when she slipped me coffee in tiny cups mostly filled with milk, and when she nibbled peanut butter in bed amidst the shuffle of newspapers, magnifying glasses and me. And I can share this part of her—part of me—with Wood Sprite.

Of course, in my dreams she comes to me and says that she and Wood Sprite are old friends. So perhaps she knows her much better than I think.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia