Granna
My phone woke me up at 7:03 Friday morning.
“Hello?”
“Addam? It’s me, mom.”
“I know, I saw my caller id. What’s up?” I could hear the tears welling up in mother’s eyes.
“Granna just died.”
I loved my grandparents. They instilled in me a love of Michigan at a young age that I still haven’t been able to shake. The summer after 1st grade, they took my cousin and I on a spectacular roadtrip. We drove from Detroit to Mackinaw… up to Sault Ste. Marie, through Tahquamenon State Park, over to Marquette, stopping in Houghton and finally arrived in Copper Harbor. On the way, we visited a prison (my first such experience), learned about the Revolutionary War at Fort Michilimackinac, skipped Petoskey stones, swam in 3 different Great Lakes and woke up in the middle of the night to watch a lunar eclipse. It was the trip of a lifetime. I’m not sure I ever properly thanked either one of them for that.
When my sister arrived from South Korea in 1976, my grandparents wanted to make sure the grandkids had a proper place to play. So they sold their house, and purchased a cabin that sat right on a lake. Some of my favorite childhood memories took place on that lake and in that house. Lighting off fireworks, fishing on the pontoon boat, roasting s’mores on the deck, helping Gramps in his woodshop. These are the memories that make me who I am.
And so, this is how I choose to remember my grandparents, in front of that big bay window overlooking Little Long Lake. Gramps is sitting on his rocker doing the New York Times’ morning crossword puzzle. And Granna, you’re sitting quietly in the chair a few feet to his left reading whichever book you were consuming at that time. That’s where you belong.
