Old Love, New Adventures

Hi all!

Thanks for your sweet comments and empathy last week.  Really.  You made me feel that maybe, possibly, I'm a little bit normal after all- with "little" and "bit" being the key words.    

Anyway, a little rain, a little wine, and we're all ready to start fresh this week.  Hallelujah!

Today I just have a short post on my mind.  I want to introduce you guys to two of the best people in the whole wide world.

There they are:


Aren't they a beautiful couple? (Aside from the pixelation.  Blame my mother's cell phone that the pic was taken on.)  That's my grammy and grandpa.  You may have noticed that they are on an airplane.  Now, for my grandpa, that's no big deal.  Despite his age (87), he's travelled regularly-in the last 10 years especially- to Alaska, Canada, Hawaii, and various states along the East Coast.

For my grandmother, the fact that she is on an airplane is MONUMENTAL.  She has kept her feet on solid ground- and I'm talking no planes, no boats, not even a raft in a swimming pool- for 84 years.

(Actually, that's not true.  She flew up to see my aunt in Oregon once 20 something years ago and swore never to fly again.   She also let my grandpa push her around on a raft in our pool on July 4th, 2005 for approximately 10 minutes.  Other than those instances, she has, as I said, kept her feet on solid ground.)

I just want to say this about my grammy:  It is not easy to be her nowadays.  The world has changed, and to her eyes, has become a scary, unfamiliar place.  She doesn't understand the internet, she refers to Facebook as "Myface", and she can barely operate the remote control to her television, let alone a computer.  She keeps 3 locks on her door because when she watches the news, she is terrified by what she hears.  She's also extremely modest.  Let me give you an example:  I gave her and my grandpa my copy of The Notebook to watch, thinking that they would like it because it's a love story set in "their" era of the 1940's.  I completely forgot that there was a love scene in it until my grammy handed it back to me a week later without saying a word. My grandpa explained in a whispered voice that they had to "fast forward through all the good parts."

My grammy is also an amazing cook, the most fun to make laugh because she'll crack up until she cries,  and the most competitive card player you'll ever meet.  The best thing about her is that she loves all her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren with the best, warmest, most cozy unconditional love anyone could experience.

My parents travel a lot and when they can, they take my grandfather.  He likes to get out and see the world.  They usually ask my grammy to go, but in the past she has always declined.  That's why this time, when my grandfather called my parents back and said Grammy was in for this trip to Hawaii, we were all shocked.  I don't know what he said to her, but whatever it was must've been good.  I'm sure there were plenty of times when she probably wanted to back out- the sheer thought of passing through the body scanner must've made her want to crawl through the floor- however, she stuck with it.  (In fact my mom posted this morning that grammy went through the scanner without even knowing that she did it).

So that's why tonight, I am so looking forward to going outside and looking up at the moon. I'm going to imagine my grandparents standing together under that same moon, with their feet in some Hawaiin sand and enjoying the fact that 65 years into their marriage they have finally made it off the continent of North America and onto an island paradise.



Goes to show, you are never too old to find the courage for a new adventure!