Grandma Laughs

My grandmother now lives in a nursing home and (of course) she doesn’t particularly like it there.  Every couple of weeks, I mail her a card with something in it to keep her spirits up—origami, poetry, cool quotes.  Last week I was out of ideas, so I sent her a copy of MistyMorning Run.  Apparently, it made an impression……

I was a little leery about sending it because of one of the phrases.  I don’t recall my grandma using strong language (well, possibly once, but she was terribly provoked at the time) and I wasn’t sure how she would feel about my poem.  However, I was unable to find anything else I liked and I found the perfect background to print the poem on, so I sent it to her in spite of my concerns.  According to my aunt, it was a hit:

We went to see Grandma this afternoon.  We think she had just gotten your most recent card--we're not sure whether she had read it before, but we got it out and showed it to her anyway.  (One of the few blessings of dementia is that every moment is a new one and everything old is new again!) We read the card (silently) and then your poem.  All of a sudden she started to giggle a bit and her finger traced its way down the page to the line that began "You can kiss my ass, Cinderella..." which she read out loud and laughed with joy as she read it.  I smile now just thinking about it; it was a moment, for sure!  Thank you from all three of us!

How funny that the one thing I was worried about turned out to be the part that she enjoyed most.  This crazy old world just continues to surprise me.  I’m so glad I sent it, and doubly glad that my aunt took the time to let me know about grandma’s response.  I keep smiling, just picturing that scene.