Merry Christmas.  It was too quiet here today.  Just us old folks until AJ showed up and told us funny stories and brought energy from the city where he lives; San Francisco.  I am taking him back up there this morning.  He has to go to work.  Grandpa and I are going to a play starring an actor that your daddy worked with when he was a stage hand at the college.  His name is Joseph Ribiero.  Today he’ll be Scrooge.  Someday we will take you to plays and musicals.

Grammie had us over for dinner yesterday.  Her little place was all decorated with lights and Christmas doo-dads.  The kitties hid under the beds the whole time we were there. Georgia and Metro sniffed all over us when we got home.  They knew we’d been around kitties, even though we never touched them.  I was happy to hear your voice for a few minutes yesterday.  It sounded busy there at your place.  I hope you got a few moments to talk to yourself and roll your new truck around.  It was nice of the Toys for Tots people to bring you the truck.  It made me a little sad to think of you as a recipient of a donation.  I know it was a nice thing for you, so of course I am happy, too. Your mommy said that you wouldn’t put the truck down even at dinner.  It was heavy, I bet; made of metal, a big yellow dump truck.  Maybe its just like the one I got you that your mommy and daddy left in the sandbox here at your other little house.  I put it in out of the rain. It’s there with the other sand toys parked in the little barn that Jim built out of our old pump house wood.  Shelby sometimes plays in it.  She rides the pony over and she and her mommy dig for a while.  I told them you would think that was fine.

I have to hurry today, and I sure wanted to talk to you more yesterday, to hear about your day, your gifts and if you got the ham I sent for dinner, but it was so loud.  I heard your mommy say that Grandma had to use the phone.  When you cried, I did too. You weren’t quite ready to hang up, and I was sad because I am Grandma. I know you have two Grandma’s but couldn’t she choose another grandma name?  I knew you first.  She hadn’t even hung out with you until last month.  I know I sound unkind.  You can call me,  Grandma-one, if you want, or maybe Grandma Brown, like your cousins in Boulder do.  I hadn’t planned on losing my name.  I hadn’t planned on losing you.  Oh, dear, there are just so many hard things about you moving to Montana.  I’m a little bit sad right now, but I know AJ will cheer me up.  See you in 21 more days, little buddy! When we will laugh and play.

PS. Bring your truck and while you fill it then back up to dump it, I’ll say, beep-beep-beep for you. Soon-O   Love, gmabrown

Last year at Christmas you had just turned 2.  You called our tree a “missmiss twee”. When we drove to town we’d stop by the houses decorated with lights and discovered where the best ones were.  You would point and call from your car seat, “dares more missmiss”. Your daddy liked the lights, too.  AJ particularly liked the fake animals and moving figures, as I recall, but all of us found delight in the extravagant displays.  It was always fun finding the longest and fanciest Christmas route to get some milk or stop at the gas station.

The weather is crisp, clear and frosty in the mornings.  There was ice on the horse troughs and as I picked up a stick to crack away the crust so the horses could drink, I remembered that you liked that job.  Poke, poke, poke, you’d say and I had to remind you not to eat the small sheets of ice.  They are frozen mule spit, I told you.  YUK, is right.  I had a friend who used to tell her kids to stay out of the road and warn them that they would end up like this, and she’d show them an old dead toad that was dry and flat. She kept it on hand for this purpose.  I hope my mule spit idea isn’t like the dried toad.  I won’t say that anymore, now that I think about it.

Thinking about the way you’d hike up all those stairs from the barn and back home makes me yearn for you. Climb up on my lap and we’ll read a book. You choose.  Okay, I’ll read the one about the carton of rubber ducks falling off the ship into the sea-AGAIN.  I will read it as many times as you want.  I started a homemade book for you that I will send when I finish it.  It’s a story about change, but that’s not what you will notice about it.  A mouse lives in your old house, I saw it scurry from the kitchen yesterday when I was over there cleaning up a bit.  The story is about the mouse.  It’s a pretend story about a real mouse.  I’m not finished yet and still have to paint all the pictures.  I started doing art again with all my free time.  Maybe the little mouse will paint, too. Maybe she’ll work with clay.  Can’t you just picture her tiny little hands shaping the clay? I haven’t really decided yet. What do you prefer?

It’s Christmas eve and I miss you. Tonight Grandpa and I will drive down to town and find the best of the fancy lights.   We’ll say, wouldn’t our little buddy love this?  And we’ll stare at the lights, thinking about you. Tomorrow will be the day you open the packages I sent.  That makes me happy.  Merry missmiss, little buddy.  Kisses to you, your  mommy, daddy and baby sister.      gma

I am humming the song that Vicky used to sing, “Sittin in my high chair, my chair, high chair, sittin in my high chair way up high….” I forget some of the words but we liked it any way it came out with our made up words. “Sittin’ in my car seat, my seat, car seat, sitting in my car seat, buckled up tight!”  I was looking for your car seat that I’d tucked away someplace a few days after you left.  I couldn’t remember where I put it.  In January Ella and Kalen will come visit and one of them will sit in it when we go places. I found it in AJ’s old room along with Ellie’s crib, snuggly blankets, her diapers and wipes.  Folded into a puff of yellow is the down comforter that used to be Mia’s before you and way before Ellie was born.  When one memory slips into our minds and hearts, its like opening an overfilled closet, everything, and I mean everything comes tumbling out.  I usually close the door really quickly so I don’t get buried in it all.  I am just too busy with everything to hang out there. I want to close my eyes really tight so I don’t have to look. But sometimes, like this morning, I stay and look at what’s there.

AJ’s room is not his room anymore and hasn’t been for a long time.  How long will I call it AJ’s room, I wonder?  People sometimes call this feeling I have empty nest; no kids at home.  AJ was the last one to leave.  He was our youngest son.  Your daddy is 2 1/2 years older.  Parents have to let go of their kids.  That’s the point-raise them up and out.  That’s just one layer down.  And everything is tangled into the next layer. There’s this other one that groans like a tender bruise. And this morning, as I run my hands along the crib rail, I remember Mia.  She slept at our house like you used to.  She was your daddy’s first baby. She got very, very sick and moved in with Grandpa and me.  That seems like a long, long time ago.  You didn’t ever see her because she died.  Remember when the blue parakeet died?  Like that.  They are both gone, but we can hold them inside of us if we want to; little zones of loving warmth that we will always be within us. Making us who we are.

I pulled out your car seat to have a look at it and moved some things around.  AJ will visit this week for Christmas and may sleep up in Bonny Doon.  He sometimes stays with friends. I set up the futon for him. I like smoothing out the flannel sheets, fluffing two soft feather pillows and one fiberfill;, they way he likes it.  It’s okay if he doesn’t stay here but I hope he does. He wishes he could see you.  Maybe he’ll send you a card that you’ll get in your mailbox in Montana.  Did you get mine?  I sent you one with Grandpa and I talking.  We had fun deciding how to use the ten seconds.  We have so much to say.  Way more than 10 seconds worth. Last night on the phone was funny when Metro barked and then Georgia.  They were saying hi to you in DOG-talk.  You’d been crying and it made you laugh.  We all laughed and you finally could say good-bye.  I’ll call you again. Maybe this time I’ll get Tony the mule and Chief and Roxie to whinny and call out to you.  We’ll see.  Lovingly, Gma

I planned a trip in January.  I have to go to Boulder to pick up Ella and Kalen to visit their California Grandma’s and your Grandpa.  They will stay in town for a week.  I decided to fly to Billings and go through Denver.  That way I can get them on the way back in Denver at the airport.  But the big news is that I get to visit you.  I can hardly wait.  I can think of may things I want to do.  I can think of many things you’d like to see, and walks we could take, places we could go, but all those are here.  I don’t know what we’ll do there.  Just hang out maybe.

I looked on a Welcome to Billings, Montana website for ideas.  It is winter so we can’t go fishing. The rivers will be frozen.  We won’t be going hiking or maybe not even walking. You don’t ski and I don’t drive a quad. There is a mall, I think. We may not even go outside.  I barely know what to do without going outside.You can help me figure it out.

I remember the fun we had making cookies, rolling out the dough, pressing in the raisins and nuts. We made soup together, you learned to peel carrots and pick the meat off the boiled bones and one time you dropped a whole big potato splash right into the pot.  We laughed so hard when I told you I would fish it out, you said “NO, of course not.”  It will be hard to cook in a motel room, but we could eat.  Maybe we can play games, jump on the bed and run in circles until we fall.  That’s silly.  I will probably bring a camera so we can take funny pictures and also sweet pictures of each other. I will pack a project to do and a game and some books.  Maybe we’ll  sing songs and dance to music or just sit and look outside and at each other.

I haven’t been having too much fun.  I forget to have it.  Then just now I realize that I need some silliness.  That’s why I want to visit, so we can laugh and me find my silliness. I think silliness sits really close to love.  And together there is nothing better.

I just got back from a hike along the old road out by Melanie and Jim’s. When I feel lonesome, I go for a walk. You and I used to walk a lot. I wasn’t ever lonesome when we were together. When you were as tiny as sissy until you were one year old and even two years old, I walked you in the cart on and off the road.  We’d walk to get the mail, ride over bumpy trails through John’s.  The cart had good wheels for that.  I’d bring a snack, your bottle and some extra clothes along. We’d travel miles just looking around, the breeze in our faces. We’d stop whenever we wanted.  There was no rush on walk days.

Georgia and Metro would run ahead.  Georgia would chase deer through the trees and come back her curly hair snaggled with berry vines. She’d sit quietly as we untangled her ear from her tail while she was panting with her big pink tongue hanging out as long as ever! We were always calling Metro.  He’d put his nose the ground and follow it. Then he’d be way back there and we’d have to whistle (you said, “ooo-ooo-ooo”)  down the trail.  Sometimes he’d sit and howl like he was lost.  But he’d always show up at home before us.  He knew all the short cuts.

When you got old enough and you wanted to walk, you got on your tricycle and we’d park at the trail head; you’d get off and we’d hike so you could play in the sand.  Sometimes we’d hike up to see the water trough and check for pollywogs.  Now its too cold for pollywogs.  Georgia and Metro are sleeping after their walk out the old rutted asphaltum road.  And Grandpa is in town.  I am glad I took a walk and I very happy to be writing to you.

Come take a walk with me pretty soon, okay?  Maybe in February you can come visit.   We’ll hike all the way to the top of the quarry and wait for the sunset. I’ll ask your mom and dad. Want to?

I want to tell you about the identity photo that I selected for gmabrown. This site calls it a gravatar and maybe everyone does, I just never heard that term before.  It’s an 11″ painted clay sculpture that sits on the shelf in my office here at home.  I hand-built it in the old hobby room at the other house. It emerged from a half-block of clay during another time that I was struggling with hard changes.  I didn’t even know you then.  I wasn’t grandma, I was your daddy’s mommy, AJ’s mommy, Robin and Ariel’s step-mom and Grandpa’s new wife.

Hands in clay helped relieve my sadness, confusion and worry; gave me something in my hands I could control, shape, and mold. I could look at it after I was done. The clay was never confused, it stayed put.  Most of the time, anyway. I rolled long snakes (just like you and I do when we play with clay) and laid the fatter ones on the bottom and kept stacking them up, welding each one to the previous snake below with mushy clay called slip and a teaspoon to push it around.  When it got about half as tall as it is now, I covered it and stopped to wait for it to set a bit.  Otherwise the whole thing would collapse.

But I couldn’t wait, I had an idea and wanted my hands to make it.  I was thinking about being strong, mighty and capable.  And I wanted to see that woman hiding in the clay. But it was too soft, damp and began to sink down.  I was all of the sudden sadder thinking about the burden of the weight I felt and now here it was in the clay. Slumping, folding and misshapen. I sought an image of strong women I known in my life and landed on my grandma.  All of the grandmas.  Whether it was true or not didn’t matter, I liked the idea of grandmothers holding the weight of the lives of generations in their hearts and minds. The burden of it all made them so much more capable, I thought, fuller. And I worked the thin coils above the slumpy form, added thickened slabs, pressed balls into the walls of her dress, added an old face on top and stood back.  “Grandma’s Burden”, I called it.  I rubbed her with acrylic paints. And I saw strength.

And today she is my muse.  My premonitions from that naive but knowing place are the slip that welds me to this experience as Grandma; who I will be for the rest of my life.