You are my favorite.

After an absence of over a year I am back to blogging.
I want to someday tell you about why I think I stopped but for tonight... I want to remind myself why I decided to start writing again.
My grandmother Elgie was one of my favorite people on the earth and for now I think she holds that title in heaven. She was someone who made me feel special. Being a middle child and the second girl had its ups and downs....
I just didn't always feel like I fit in as well as my older siblings.
Unless I was around Grandma Rampton. She had a way of making me feel like I was her favorite.
Looking through the haze of time and youth I can not be sure whether or not I really was her favorite or if she made everyone feel that way,
 but for now until I meet up with her again and ask her,
 I am just going to go with it.
I was her favorite person.
She passed away when I was 16.
She left us earlier than that though.
She had Alzheimers.
She slowly forgot who we were. When my mother would ask her if she recognized her, she would say, "Yes I do....you are one of my people."
Truthfully I do not remember handling this "new" person very well. I was a teenager and typically absorbed in my own life. I was busy with school and friends and well frankly at a loss at what to do with her. She would sit in the rocking chair and wring her hands with a worried look knit into her brow. I know she hated it. I know she must have despised the process of losing her memory. She was a strong woman unaccustomed to having other people care for her. It was such a scary time for her. I would sometimes watch her from my couch as I lay there in all my teenage glory watching TV or reading a magazine. I would try and remember all the love and energy she put into her family. I would remind myself of who she was and how much she meant to me.
I still have dreams of her.
She never speaks but she is there and she loves me.
I am still her favorite.

What I wouldn't give now as I mother and grandmother my own brood.
What was she like as a woman? What were her thoughts and feelings about life and love and family?
I long to know her better.
I want to see in writing what she thought about in a day and what made her laugh.
And of course I would LOVE some proof in her own hand that I truly was as special as she made me feel......
That I was her favorite.

Kate and Sam and all my sweet grandchildren yet to come......
Here I am.
It's Grammy.
And yes. YOU are my favorite.

Thoughts on Thanksgiving.

I entered the gas station feeling kind of blah.
It was one of those days where I didn't get as much done as I should have.
I didn't receive the usual injection of liquid sunshine called Kate and Sam.
I hadn't left the house all day
And EVERYONE in Missouri City was in their car driving willy-nilly like I was in a some low budget end of the world...pre apocalyptic frenzy.
Oh yeah Thanksgiving.
I had almost forgot about that. It has never been my favorite holiday. There are no costumes or scary decorations....no presents are exchanged....there isn't any thanksgiving music unless you count that Over the river and through the woods song that everyone forgets the words to.
I am fortunate to be the daughter of one of the best cooks in the county so no one is going over any woods or through any rivers to beat a path to this grandmas house.
So there are no last minute runs to the grocery store and no far away travel plans for me like there are for every other nut cake weaving and speeding down Highway 6.
Just a need for a 44 ounce drink and some gas and then back home.
I approached the check out counter and exchanged the usual pleasantries...
"How are you doing tonight?" I asked the clerk.
(I come genetically from a long line of people who talk to strangers like they know them.)
"Not sure yet" was her answer.
Figuring that she was talking about the fact that she was working at night in a gas station was the probable cause for her hesitancy I answered her with,
"Oh because you are probably tired of being here and about to get off soon."
"No..." she said thoughtfully, I just got here. This is my second job."
She seemed to actually still be pondering my original question.
"I was able to get some of the cooking done yesterday" she finally concluded as if she were mentally ticking off her checklist of tasks."
"Oh...okay, I muttered sheepishly, I am lucky....I don't have to cook Thanksgiving....my mom still lives close by." I said the word "still" with a little shame and renewed sense of gratitude.
"You are lucky" she pronounced,"My mother passed away when I was 23." Her eyes suddenly brimmed with tears as it looked as if she had just found out....all over again. She quickly looked down at the change in her register.
I was at a loss for words...my big cup of ice and diet coke in my hands.
I stood there for a second and then finally uttered,
"God bless you and I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving."
And I meant every word of it.