Home.
I sat on the floor in the bedroom my grandmother had spent the last few years sleeping in. It was known as “the pool room” for it housed the pool table, games, and television we grandchildren used to get away from the adults. Since having trouble with her heart, my grandmother had moved into the pool room so she could sleep peacefully away from my snoring grandfather. Usually, this room was filled with laughter, teasing, talking that grew increasingly louder over the crash of sticks and balls and sports on TV. But not today.
My grandmother died on March 13 after a brief illness. She was 84. As I sat in her bedroom, sorting through old photographs to use for a slide show at her memorial service, I came across letters. Piles of letters she had written to friends and family over the years, some sad, some sweet and full of her practical advice about how to just get on with life. Near the bottom of the piles of photos, there were loose sheets of hotel stationary, filled with her travel reflections as they enjoyed retirement and the various travels around the world. Mexico City in 1970. Australia and New Zealand in 1988. Europe in 1985 with 3 of her closest girlfriends. Hawaii for their friends’ 25th wedding anniversary in the 1960s. Sweden. England. A car trip across the United States in a station wagon in the early 1980s. Bus trips with their friends from church. Niagara Falls. Amish country. Croatia and Slovenia when she was 80. She reveled in sharing her excitement about where they had been, bringing home gifts for family and friends and regaling us with tales of innkeepers, tour guides, sights, sounds and the glories of the natural world. Her favorite piece of jewelry was a silver gum tree ring she’d purchased in Australia. She said it always reminded her of that trip and one of the most breath-taking sights she’d ever been to, the Great Barrier Reef.
I sat for hours reading, hearing her voice so clearly in my head, enjoying her lifetime of travels, a traveler’s dream come true. A legacy of wandering, exploring, searching out the unseen, savoring the new, recorded in her words, tucked away to be found by the one who followed in her curious footsteps. What more could a granddaughter ask for?
