A Memory Montage/Songs for the Little Ones at Home

My Grammy Ad is (was) my favorite person in the whole wide world.

She had a great, big crocheted purse with peanut butter crackers and wintergreen Lifesavers floating in it for tummy emergencies. Her lips were always pink or coral and had the waxy smell of Max Factor lipstick. Her cheeks smelled like the sterility of Cover Girl; the brown compact lurked in her giant bag - at the ready for touch-ups.

She always wore tennis shoes; Keds, to be exact, skirts, and polo shirts - most from Land's End or LL Bean. They were all cotton and machine washable. (She taught my mom how to shop.) When she wore long sleeves, you could count on there being a clean piece of Kleenex waiting up one of them for a tear or a sniffle.

She baked amazing cookies (chocolate chip) and breads (lemon zest) and cakes (German chocolate). She always had watercolors at her house for me to paint with; she'd take the card table out for me. Sometimes I painted on the pages of coloring books, sometimes I painted my nails. She loved both. She kept Cheese Balls in a tin under her kitchen sink, for when we came to visit, knowing it was a treat for us - my mom didn't approve of junk food - along with Veryfine bottles of fruit punch. The glass juice bottles were the old school type: they had Styrofoam labels. I peeled the labels from the bottle in strips while my mom and Grammy Ad talked on the couch.

Her alarm clock was old and you could hear the gears grind as it worked harder and harder to keep the seconds counted. In her bedside table, on which the clock sat, she kept a tin of lemon candies; I would take one after a nap. She grew geraniums in her kitchen, the warmth of incoming sunlight made the leaves smolder and their smell infiltrated the whole avocado-colored kitchen. She found four leaf clovers all the time, pressing them dry in her Fanny Farmer cookbook and then mailing them to my mom for good luck.

When we left for home, she'd always send us home with a paper bag full of her old Time and Life magazines that she'd already read, maybe the occasional Veryfine; we'd beep the horn a special way when we drove away from her little house - beep ba beep beep beeeeep beeeeep. She waved until we couldn't see her anymore; until her white hair was a pinpoint, until her watering blue eyes were far away from mine.

I miss her so much.

I've spent my whole life trying to be closer to her; trying to never forget the way that she more than any other person has permeated every single one of my senses. I've spent my life remembering her so that I'll never, ever forget.

My mom knows I do this. She gives me jewelry, antique buttons, scarves, photos, Grammy Ad's paintings and drawings; she gives me anything that I might find some sentimental value in, anything that might make knowing her in the absence of her a little easier.

Tonight, two days before my birthday, and one day before my mom's birthday, my mom gave me a book, Songs for the Little Ones at Home. It's copyright is 1911, it's binding is split, it's pages are nearly all falling out, and there is a note tucked inside, written in Grammy Ad's cursive: "One of my favorites... My mother read this book to me so much and I looked at it so much that it is almost in shreds..."

When I looked through the book later on in the evening, after we left birthday dinner, I could hardly wait to share. So, I'm going to post one "poem" every Monday here at FGS. Some of the passages them are lyrical and very clearly music - they are complete with sheet music on the corresponding page. Other passages are poetic, and have no musical direction to accompany them. Some are a little preachy... but what can you expect, really? It was 1911.

So, every Monday I'll blog a passage from Songs for the Little Ones at Home. One, maaybe two... depending on the day.

And, every time, I'll think of her. And it will make my heart beat, and I'll touch the hardcover she touched, and turn the pages she turned, and read what she read, and I'll try not to wonder if this was her favorite... or this... or that...

A Song to Bring Sleep

Two little eyes,
Two little lips,
Two little hands,
Two little feet:
What shall we ask for them all?

Two little eyes,
Blue, blue,
Blue as the azure deep of the skies ---
Now so rougish, now wondrous wise,
Solemn and funny, all in a twink,
Changing and changing with every wink:
What shall we ask for these little eyes?

Open them, Lord,
To see in thy Word
Wondrous things;
Light them with love,
And shade them above
With angels' wings

Two little lips,
Red, red,
Red as the flamy coral tips,
Sweet as the rose the wild bee sips,
Singing and prattling all day long,
And kissing and coaxing with witchery strong:
What shall we ask for these little lips?

Two little hands,
Busy, busy,
Busy as bird and busy as bee,
Gathering "funny things" for me.
Weaving webs, and building a house
"Just the size for a wee, wee mouse":
What shall we ask for these little hands?

Two little feet,
Nimble, nimble,
Trot-foot and Light-foot, oh, what a pair;
Now here, now there, now everywhere:
Running of errands, dancing in glee,
Skipping and jumping merrily:
What shall we ask for these little feet?

I picked this one because I'm about to go to sleep. And, because I find it odd that it sounds like a little baby, but it references kissing and coaxing and running errands - which sound, almost 100 years later, a lot more adult than baby. Anyway. First installment of SftLOaH. We'll see how it goes...

Good night.