cookies

For nearly a month now, my grandmother has been in the hospital.

One day this week as I sat with her, I asked her what her favorite memories with me were.  She loves to reminisce, so I knew she would love this conversation.  She mentioned a couple memories right off the bat that I expected to hear, because she has talked about them so much through the years… Like how we would go to the video store and rent My Little Pony so frequently that we could have bought it at least twenty times.  She also brought up a story I didn't remember.  She said one time her neighbor put a toy snake on the fence, and my brother, cousins and I came running inside all in a tizzy over this snake. She got the biggest kick out of it.

I brought up a story she had forgotten, too.  We made tons and tons of cookies together, and the best part was OF COURSE licking the bowl… Well, one time when my brother was also there, it was time to lick the bowl and my brother was in one of the back bedrooms.  Grandmama told me to go ask him if he wanted to share the bowl with me.  So, my selfishness and greed won out and I marched myself halfway down the hallway, waited a few seconds, marched myself back to the kitchen and told her Chris didn't want any cookie dough.  And as fate would have it, while I was rigorously finishing off the bowl, Chris came into the kitchen and asked, "Hey, how come I didn't get any?"  So of course I got in big trouble that day, not really by Grandmama, but by Mom, who Grandmama called.  Good move, Grandmama.  Good move.  She knew my mother's wrath should keep me from ever lying again.  She laughed and laughed at the cookie dough bowl story and we talked about how it was actually pretty clever of me.  Unfortunately clever doesn't always win.

We also talked about Thanksgivings and Easters.  There were a few Thanksgivings where we'd all sleep over and Grandmama would fix waffles the next morning.  They were one of the best things I'd ever put in my mouth.  And even though she gave me the recipe, I still cannot to this day for the life of me make them like she did.  I can still clearly picture my cousins and I sitting around the kitchen table stuffing our faces with waffles, while Grandmama stood by the counter pouring endless creamy batter onto the waffle iron.

Difficult doesn't begin to describe what it was like to leave her in the hospital after my visit.  Here's this once invincible woman who helped raise me, who wrapped me in warm towels from the dryer, who taught me math, and who let me help her make chocolate chip cookies about one trillion times, now barely able to stand up.  

Life is a beautiful, hard, confusing, wonderful mess.  Even still, God breathes on us in every moment.

I'd appreciate any prayers you may lift up for my grandmother.