the gift

"What's that?, " you say.

"A dried up little flower?," you ask.

"It's not even that pretty," you're thinking.

~~~~~

I say.....

"Oh but it is!".

"Beautiful, I mean."

"It was a gift."

"Where you might just see a faded yellow dried up flower without much character...I see the beauty, the lovliness, the inspiration, the unfading and unfailing love bestowed upon me by the giver."

You say.....

"Who WAS the giver of such a gift?"
"When was it given to you?"

I say.....

"It was my grandmother who gave me the gift...her given name is Dana...but known to me as Nana, she gave me this little flower".

Let me tell you the story:

My grandmother was, still is, precious to me, though she has gone on to heaven now. She died in the fall of 2002.

It was the following spring that her children sorted through all her belongings, some of which came to me. There were gifts I had given her in the past, some small treasures that reminded me of childhood days spent with her, and various other odds and ends. Among them was a little sticky notepad that read 'A NOTE FROM...DANA'. I took the little notepad and tucked it in my container by the phone that holds all my other sticky notes...but I never used that one...I just kept it there for the longest time...like keeping her with me somehow...I didn't want to use the little pages...to have them all gone...like she was.

So it sat there neatly in my container...for years...then there came a day when I felt it was ok to start using the little notes. I don't remember the first time I wrote on that notepad. I don't know what mundane thing I might have jotted down...a phone number...an appointment...a message to someone else in the family? I can't remember.

At first only I wrote notes on the little pad, then as time went on others would use a page here and there. The little pad began to grow thinner and thinner. The other day I noticed my son using it...scribbeling down something he was copying from the computer screen.

The next day I sat down at the computer, turned it on, and while waiting for the screen to come up I glanced over and saw the little notepad with his scribbeled page still attached. I picked it up and realized as I began to pull his page off that it was the second to the last one...as I continued to pull my son's page away I saw that I held in my hand the final...the very last page of my grandmother's notepad...and it was then and there that she gave me the gift.

A percious reminder for me of her...there on the last page...a sweet rememberance that her love for me lives on.