looking through me

Category: 31 Days: Family

sharing Grandma

Everyone loved Grandma. She made friends on planes and in grocery store lines. She never met a stranger.

And though I was used to non-relatives calling her “Aunt Max” or being part of holidays and family occasions, it caught me off guard when one of my friends started calling her “Grandma.”

I was fine sharing her . . . in the form of hugs at church. But to share her title, this was unsettling. Especially because my friend’s own grandmothers were active presences in her life. Why did she need a third?

But even in my selfishness, I knew it meant something amazing. I knew it meant this woman who loved me was so generous in her love she had enough to reach beyond our family and pull in others. Not because they were lacking in family, but because there’s always room for more family to speak words of truth and encouragement.

And as junior high students was there anything my friend and I needed more than a grandma or three who were in our corner?

 


This post is part of the 31 Days: Family series. Read the beginning, and see a full index of posts, here.

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perpetual cookie

Sitting on the grass I popped a cookie in my mouth. Dessert, the best part of lunch. No doubt my circle of friends continued talking, but I was distracted. I kept chewing, but the cookie wasn’t breaking down. I started to gag.

Something was seriously wrong with my cookie.

Unable to take it any more I jumped up and ran to a trashcan. With no grace at all I was done with the cookie. As I straightened up my eyes crossed the quad in time to see the middle doubled over his own trashcan.

And that’s when I understood.

I returned to my lunch and reached for an uneaten cookie. I broke it apart. Inside a layer of baked goodness was a cotton ball.

I should have known. Grandma’s reach knew no bounds.

My junior high friends didn’t know about Grandma’s April Fool’s pranks, but every year after they were eager to sit close by to see the possible results.

 


This post is part of the 31 Days: Family series. Read the beginning, and see a full index of posts, here.

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