Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Notes From Gina... A Letter From My Grandmother

So…..I went to check my mail the other day. Whooo hoo! I so love all of those ads for new siding (ummm, I have brick)….for consolidating my debt (no thanks, like to spread it around)…..for new credit cards?? Ok, well, maybe I like those!
But mixed into all of this "bound for the trash" assortment was a small light pink envelope. "Who could this be from?" I wondered.
I walked into the house and studied the very careful handwriting that spelled out my name and my old address (unfortunately, that big – please forward to- covered up some of the ink).
I decided to make myself wait to open it, to prolong the mystery. There was no return address, and none of my friends had penmanship like this (trust me, I'm doing well to decipher the scrawl that one of them swears is cursive!).
I walked over to my new bar (that sounds so great!) and grabbed one of my personalized tulip glasses from Swagger. I figured I needed a pretty drink to go along with the pretty letter. After filling it, I plopped down on the couch and held the letter up to the light. And no, it didn't tell me anything new.
I couldn't stand it any longer. I tried to carefully open it, but alas, it ended up shredded along the top as I ripped into it.
Inside was a folded piece of stationary that smelled lightly of flowers (honestly, it reminded me of my Lollia Believe bubble bath …)- unbelievable, but this had to be from my grandmother. Unbelievable because my grandmother has been sick for several years and doesn't send letters to anyone anymore.
I pulled the paper from the envelope and several bills fell out. I opened the letter and the first thing that hit me was the date- this was written over 4 years ago! Where had it been all this time?
I read the letter several times- it was very short. She told me she had been thinking of my mother and I, and that she missed us. That she wasn't going to be able to come and see us in the spring as she normally did, but that she wanted my mom and I to go to the flower show we normally went to together, and to buy ourselves a special treat with the money she sent (since at the end she always bought us something from the show to commemorate our visit).
I sat there on the couch for awhile remembering the different ones we had been to in the past, and I thought about how much I missed her.
I called my mom and told her about the letter, and how strange it was that I didn't get it until now.
I knew what I wanted to do with the money. I bought my mom a strand of freshwater pearls I had seen at Swagger the last time I went in with her because they reminded me of a set my grandmother always wore. I bought myself the oval earrings with roping with just my middle initial on them (because mine and my grandmother's are the same)- and she has a pendant that looks like this….and I bought my grandmother the Loliia Inspire perfume and sent it to her, because I wanted her to have it to think of the flowers we loved to smell together. And then I pulled out my photo album and spent the next little while looking at pictures of us together and smiled at the wonderful memories.