Boxing Day Text Convo

First, tell me that dude isn't how you picture some of the gnomes?

Second, you were supposed to get this on Boxing Day. Except several things happened: A freak snow storm (in a city not prepared for snow at all), and then my grandmother passed away. All in all, the 26th sucked. Then yesterday my husband found out one of his friends and colleagues in Denver was shot and killed. 2021, getting its last kicks in.

Also, sorry to start this off with such a downer? But that's one of the main reasons I lost a few days. It's hard to be funny when your emotional circuit breaker is overloaded. As it is, today I wrote the first draft of my grandmother's eulogy and then this post. I was going to edit a project but I don't have it in me. Frankly, I'm surprised I got this done. But it was actually really nice to take a break from grief and slip into Sam's world for a moment and just be silly.

People underestimate silliness, but I think it can be really powerful in its own way. 

I was lucky to get the last few years with my grandma. She was 93 and we didn't think she'd make it to 93. She lived a full life and I'm glad she got to see a book dedicated to her. (Curses was dedicated to her.) She wasn't a reader, but she supported me and my silly books so much.

You think I'd be tired of telling stories about my Gran after working on the eulogy, but I guess I'm not. I have one to share with you, which as readers, I think will have more meaning to you. 

My Gran grew up in the Great Depression. It formed a lot of who she was, and one of the holdovers from her upbringing was that she couldn't let herself be "idle." She wasn't comfortable not doing something. If she was watching TV, she was doing a puzzle, or crocheting, or mending something. For some reason, she saw reading as being idle. Couldn't understand why my mom and me loved it so much.

One time I was talking to her about it, and my Gran said that she didn't read because when she did, that's all she wanted to do. She'd ignore everything else. The rest of the world fell away. Which meant she wasn't doing and so she avoided it.

And I realized that she didn't read for the exact same reason that I did.

It's funny how the way we react to things can change and inform so much of who we are. To me, reading is doing. To my Gran, an idleness. Yet she never discouraged me from reading, never made any comments, and was really proud of my books and my degree in writing.

I'm going to miss my stubborn, funny, persnickety, feisty, delightful grandmother a whole hell of a lot. 

And frankly, I'm already tired of randomly crying in my house. So I'm grateful that for a few minutes, I got some joy (and no crying at all) with Sam and his friends. I hope you do, too.

-Lish