Sometimes, gray and drizzly Sundays are nice.  Especially here on a horse farm where the weather gives a perfect reason for not doing the outside chores.

Rainy days often remind me of a specific time when I was a child at my Polish grandmother’s house. (Isn’t it funny how, at times, you can remember snatches of memories from your early childhood? Not the whole scene, just a little snippet in time. And you can’t recall anything that came before it or after it.  Just that one, tiny frozen moment in time.)

It was raining outside, and I was maybe six or seven sitting on the floor in the living room while Gramma sat in her chair right beside me. It was just she and I in the house.  I remember feeling all warm and cozy while the rain pelted angrily against the huge, single-paned windows.

I was reading a blue-bound book about the Bobsey Twins (blue-bound book about the Bobsey twins…how’s that for alliteration?). I remember my eyes getting heavy, and I finally closed the book, closed my eyes, and leaned back against the side of Gram’s chair.

I remember her reaching down and softly stroking my hair.  And she sang me a quiet little lullabye to me, of which I can only remember two lines: “A tiny, turned-up nose / Two cheeks just like a rose.”

Such glowing warm and secure memories! As I sit here right now typing on my computer, they are covering me like a thick, soft comforter.

In the midst of an often chaotic and violent family life, Gramma always had a way of making me feel safe and special…and loved.

Even though she has been gone for almost twenty years, I still feel that love she sent to a small child that day filtering down through the ages, pouring all over me, and filling my heart…and my eyes.

Love lasts.

I miss my Gramma right now.