My Gramma!

A grandmother's love isn't one step removed but a grand love.
I thought she was doing me a favor. I thought she was sacrificing her plans and her energy to watch her children and the grand ones. And she really did!

She wasn't verbal with her emotions, my grandma. Indian born, she kept things inside. She was 7 when her father left her,13 when she had her first baby in her arms,my moms elder sister. She had grandpa back for 51 precious years and then she lost him too.
And lost something of herself, too.

I never saw her act up or out, or kick up her heels, or laugh so hard that she cried. I never saw her lose control in any way. Not when her husband died. She dried her eyes. She sat up straighter. And she carried on.

She loved her children and grand children( especially me!). I understood this. But I didn't how much she loved them. How could I? and I believed that her love was less than mine; it had to be, diluted by even the word, grandmother, a syllable removed. Mother closer. Mother the real thing.

I still remember the late night stories she told and the simple way of living she thought me.They inspire me even now! There is no day spent without remembering you grandma,without rolling a drop of tear over ma cheek. Why did you leave me grandma? Dint i love you enough?

If she were here now I would be sitting at her kitchen table eating the
daalpoli(sweet)she always made for me, asking her why.
Why didn't you tell me that being a grandmother isn't love one step removed but a grand love, a huge, twinkle in your eyes, lilt in your steps love that you don't expect?

I call her narsamba(her name) and she used to call me gradma! A Grandmother's Love I always knew within my heart, God sent you from above. I still see myself with you eating those road side gol guppas,seeing movies in tent house, drenching in rain ,the sugarcane we stole,I see even now. I look back and see how she waited at her door exclaiming over each of them , at every age, and at whatever they had with them. A handbag. A paper. A friend.

I see how she always had time to sit down and listen. She gave me what i asked for. And she gave me what i didn't ask for — her heart.

She greatly believed in GOD! Offered prayers and asked for very minute things! One of them was to see one of her grand daughters marriage and god loved her so much that she was taken by him before she fulfilled her desires! Making all of us, especially me, left with nothing. I see her smile from heavens. I see her showering her blessings!

I wait at the door of god. I hear a little voice.
And I know that no sound on earth will ever be dearer.

I love u loads narsamba! Miss u! There is nobody else other than me who misses you!