If Books Could Speak

We talk on the phone now, my granddaughter and me. This five-year-old girl who lives a zillion miles away in Virginia, this girl who I miss terribly, and her brothers too. I want to tell her everything to avoid in life, what friends to hang out with and that her heart will break and shatter more than once, the shards finding their way to Oregon piercing my own, and I won't be able to fix it. I won't tell you this, let's chat happy. She is not a telephone chatter by nature, much preferring talking in person, like asking for special dark chocolate hidden in my suitcase. Or chatting it up with friends outside. But cleverness pirated this Grandma's mind and I figured out a way to say I love you in person, me and her on Sunday eves. Thank you for Face Time and regulated bed-times for kindergartners. I capture her in bed now, telling her I love you, a bazillion miles away,

Reading books, our new love language. Words leaping across the vast separation, pictures dancing across the pages, caulking the missing spots, the longing, we share our mutual delight in stories. Focusing the cell phone screen, careful to point the phone just right, I read her words and my heartbeat thumps wild. It's like I'm that nine-year-old girl again dancing around the living room to the theme song from that TV show, Bonanza, the thrill of the music and Little Joe coming up soon. This all on Sunday night. My heart pirouettes with the memory and with granddaughter all blanketed in bed, nestling inside those precious virtual moments I say again I love you, with each flip of the page.

I pray you will love God long after I'm gone and you will remember our times on Sundays when you watched the stories unfold on the tiny screen, and you rubbed at your tired eyes, the lids they fall heavy and I love you a thousand different ways. The sleepy stars tucking you in, and I fold a corner just so, loving you a gazillion miles away and the stories they swirl around us, as we ready to say goodbye. 

Remember me, those pictures and words they speak, we coupled you two together when you lived so far apart. We tucked joy inside your aching, brought you snapshots of grace to carry inside your longing. We did this for you both, who live a trillion miles away.

The One Who Bridges The Gap

The winds is blowing, leaves are beginning to fall, and I hear the beckoning call of change permeating the air. Just like the seasons in Oregon that signal rebirth and renewal, I imagine the possibilities that wait for us all, us humans hunting for the good, for kindness, sharing and caring.  Is it possible to be the person you think I can be? How do I get there without sacrificing all my stuff? Maybe I can give you one small thing, something borrowed perhaps? I tune out all that scares me on television, social media, the radio, clearing out the gutters of noise and try super-hard to focus, to meditate on all that truly matters.

And I want to fast forward to a future moment when the all-together-person shows up inside of me, the someone who never complains, who bakes all day just to give it all away, and who gives until it hurts right bad. Everything, all of it, to anyone in need.

The wind is picking up, rain drips from the moist leaves, the clock ticks away the minutes. I think about the world and all it needs right now, and I get stir crazy. I wonder about that inner person who left a number of years ago to follow that outcast who told things straight up and still does today. I can't do this alone! You have to help me because I will seriously give up!

A farmer plowing his field never looks back, he continues working the ground, keeping his eyes on what's up ahead, never looking backward.

The rain lets up a bit, seizing the moment, I step outside into the damp October day, walk across the street to retrieve our neighbor's mail, him having a stroke recently. Each step rings the message right clear. A tender touch of grace brushes my back as I walk up toward his front porch. I take a long inhale of promise.

 He is the one who bridges the gap between who we want to be and who we are right now. And every act of kindness, every step toward caring and sharing sends those angels up above into a glorious alleluia. I knock gently on our neighbor's door, readying for some conversation, and my mind draws to those bridges and all the people who cross safely every day, never seeing the invisible on the other side who is orchestrating all that busy, crazy traffic. 

He answers my knock with a smile.