A Few of the Things I Should Have Said

My Gram called me last month and said, "We are moving today to the Cities. You might never see us again," and though I knew this was coming, I have been thinking more and more about them, their impact on my life, and how I love them. This is in response.

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You have loved me so well. You have been part of my life before I knew you, before you even knew me. Almost 90, you are still so important to me.

I remember:

• Preschool at Zion Lutheran Church. I only learned a year or two ago that you paid to send me there.
• Winter coats
• Penmanship books at your kitchen table
• Picking the sweetest raspberries
• Making raspberry lemonade
• Picking flowers, cattails and pussy willows
• Exotic seashells as gifts
• A shelf made for seashells, lovingly installed in my bedroom
• Learning to catch and pin insects
• Winter ski passes to Pine Valley
• Summer swimming passes to Pinehurst Park
• Tennis lessons
• Tennis raquet
• Having an identity wherever I went in Cloquet when I was growing up. "Are you related to Ray Dolan, the Biology teacher?" was frequently asked, and still is, when people learn my maiden name.
• Trip to Alaska to see my dad
• Camping our way across Canada
• Those caramels in the red plaid box that can only be found in Canada
• Grampa making me try a cherry tomato at a restaurant in Alaska and almost getting sick. tomatoes are now my favorite food.
• Gramma picking me up from grade school and junior high to go see Grampa at the high school
• Getting chased by a goose who wanted the bucket of grain I had
• Grampa rescuing me from the goose
• Watering plants at the high school
• Attending Grampa's retirement party at the high school. I remember being so proud that so many obviously liked and respected you.
• An A+ on my biology leaf collection - the only one in the class, thanks to my biology teacher Grampa
• My education
• Preschool, not just daycare, for both Micah & Grace
• Van transmission
• Underwear, Vaseline lotion, Chapstick & toilet paper for Christmas every year
• Chocolate chip cookies at my back door
• Angel food cake and that fluffy icing that I still can't make
• Cranberry pudding
• All the fixings for rice krispie bars at my back door
• Dried flowers
• Ranger Rick
• National Geographic
• Snowmobile rides
• Trips to the cabin
• Trips across the big lake, hang man's island
• Loving me enough to have hard conversations with me, about God, getting married young...

And most of all I remember how you have always loved me. Even after my mom and dad were divorced and Mom & I came home without him. You never made me, or her, feel like a second class citizen - and others did. I remember Gramma describing something someone else was doing, her disagreement apparent, but disapproval never articulated, saying, "That's just what they do." From this I learned to accept people and loving them even while disagreeing with their actions.  You have always been there for me, in all these ways and more. I have never been very good at staying in touch and thank yous as I should be, but I want you to know that your love, kindness, wisdom and support has not ever gone unnoticed. I love you more than I can say. Thank you for loving me back.

 

Counting towards One Thousand Gifts

# 155-194