Last night, my 85-year-old Grandma came to Thanksgiving dinner. And then, as my father was bundling her up to take her back to the assisted living facility where she lives, she puked up her Thanksgiving dinner all over my sister's dining room table. (Thankfully, I was not in the room at the time.) So as a precaution, my mother went with my father to drop my Grandmother off. And since they were gone for more than an hour, and since my nieces are crazy for my mother, I finally got them all to myself. Yeah, there were other people there, but somehow I'm the one who got to spend time with them while everyone else did dishes or cleaned up vomit or just plain booked it out of the joint.
Niece #1 took me to her room, where she and I played her favorite game: let's write stuff on envelopes and Scotch tape them to my bedroom door. She gave me a marker and an envelope and instructed me to write any word. So I wrote "turkey." This is the conversation that followed:
You wrote turkey 'cause it's Thanksgiving?
Yup.
Write something else.
Well, I know you don't like stuffing, so I'll write cranberry.
Why do you use lowercase y's?
Because you only use uppercase letters when it's the beginning of a sentence, or a word like a name. See? I'll write a boy's name with a Y. Yaakov. Yaakov is a boy's name that starts with a Y.
Do we know him?
So now there is an envelope on my niece's door that says turkey cranberry Yaakov. And if Grandma had never thrown up, I'd have never had that fabulous conversation with my niece.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Everything happens for a reason, and you've just confirmed that for anyone who may have been wavering.
Another related truth: every challenging scenario hides a moment of opportunity.
I'm glad you spent that time for your niece, too. Otherwise, we would have missed out on a very special moment.
I wonder if Yaakov's ears are burning.
Yaakov's ears did burned, I saw this happen first hand!
Carli, all that matters is that you survived to teach her another day.
Hi, Michele sent me!
She's 87. I hope she and the table are alright.
Here from Michele.
First, I hope your grandmother is ok. It's hard to be old.
Second. Those conversations with four or five year olds are priceless. Make no sense, but priceless none the less. You haven't lived until your four year old tells a brand new friend that you're going to be 88 on your birthday. Never mind that you are really going to be 39, somedays you do feel 88 so she's really not that far off.
Grandmas are cool like that.
I hope your grandma is okay. It did give you chance to spend a wonderful moment with your niece.
Michele sent me
Post a Comment