Memories Monday

Two memories, of my maternal grandparents. Early memories -- snapshots with curling edges, faded, small enough to fit in the palm of a young girl.

My grandfather, dying of cancer. My mother was halfway through her second pregnancy, so I would have been 18 months or so. I remember a tiny room, filled with people. The air in there was thick and yellow. My grandfather lay on a single bed, and I've been told I put his slippers on "so he wouldn't get cold feet on the way to heaven."Although that seems a bit precocious for an 18 month old. All I remember was the air, how yellow everything was -- a window to the left of the bed. Sunshine. Hushed voices. That one moment is all I have of him.

And my grandmother. To get to her apartment (above a garage? an outbuilding?) you had to climb a staircase that had been built onto the side of the building. I found that so strange, but interesting -- stairs, regular stairs, on the outside of the building. I stayed there when my brother John was born, so my grandfather would have died just a few months earlier.

My grandmother let me use a tray to go "sledding" down those outside stairs. I would have just turned two. My grownup heart starts beating like crazy now, when I think about it, about letting Anna sled down the stairs on a tray. At two I thought it was the most wonderful thing I'd ever done.

If only they were real snapshots. If only I could open a book and take them out, hold them in my hand and see them one more time.