Hope is seeing  your grandmother’s flowers in your aunt-in-law’s backyard. It’s watching second cousins who have only met once latch onto each other with ease and love. It’s eating sausages cooked by a young man who fought back childhood cancer that could have killed him. It’s taking pictures as directed by a tiny girl and complying to her demand, “Me see em!” entirely to hear her squeal “Oh my GOD!” even if you just took a picture of a water glass.  It’s watching a total of ten first and second cousins ranging from 18 down to 2 years in age play joyfully together for an entire afternoon and evening, even after rain drives everyone indoors at a small lakeside cabin. It’s catching three sisters laughing, when they were only supposed to smile.

Dear Helen,

I barely knew you. I met you several times, the first when Scott and I started dating. You took the whole family to eat at the Dog Team restaurant, where food was served in impossible little Ferris Wheels.  I was sad for you when, several years later, it burned and was not rebuilt. You came to our wedding and our baby shower.  We got together in New York State and in Vermont. Although Scott and I never lived close enough to spend much time with you, I still understood that you were his grandmother and an important figure in his life.

But I barely knew you.

I never knew your mother died when you were five, or that her name was Jennie, or that it was the influenza of 1919 that killed her. I never knew that your father was so strict that it was something of a rebellion for you to attend parties with your nursing school colleagues. Although I knew you survived your first husband by many years, I never knew what Allen looked like.

I never knew that nineteen of your children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren could gather in a two bedroom cabin with a small porch and laugh for some seven hours. And I would never have guessed that the five spouses mixed into that number would enjoy the event as much as the blood relatives. I never imagined that from one person could descend such camaraderie.

Ninety seven years is a long life. It’s a life that resonates.

And I never thought to say thank you.

Sincerely,

Your granddaughter-in-law Jessie

_______________________________

I’m prompt-hopping with this one. The Lightning and The Lightning Bug asked us to flicker our inspiration towards hope. Hope is normally a dangerous emotion for me, but I found a rather pleasant way to approach the subject. And Amanda at The Last Mom On Earth is hosting a week of open letters. This one is to my husband’s grandmother. And yes, I know the “dear” part falls in the middle, when technically the salutation in a letter comes first. But I’m not your typical letter-writer, either.

About jesterqueen: Jessie Powell is the Jester Queen. She likes to tell you about her dog, her kids, her fiction, and her blog, but not necessarily in that order.