My Grandma Glenna's Birthday

in honor of a 93 years dedicated to others

A wedding photo, July 16th, 1947. Grandma and Grandpa in the foreground, Betty and Loren behind.

Formerly titled: March 25/Third Quarter Moon

My grandmother is in the hospital after a fall and her blood pressure and heart rate is fluctuating. They say perhaps her body is shutting down. All I can think of is her hands. I will go tomorrow to see her in hopes of holding her hand one more time. She has beautiful sturdy long-fingered hands and how can they not continue in this world forever?

My grandma loved to get her hands in the dirt. She loved flowers. She loved me. In the past few years, on our mountains upon mountains of video calls to her, I finally appreciated how she teased and flirted with the men in her life. Not quite sure how I missed that as an important trait of hers. I knew she liked to tease Josh (and me), declaring him to be “a keeper” all those years she has known and approved of him, but I never quite noticed, how she did that to the many men she loved who were in her life. Even after she couldn’t keep other facts together, she managed to love up the men with her teasing. She’d waggle her finger at the screen, the three of us sitting on our end of the call, “Is that Will I see over there?” Pointing out the color of his shirt or that his hair was getting long and how handsome he looked.