Lately, I have been reconnecting my relationships with each of my grandmothers. Upon the realization that they were been taken for granted, I began scheduling regular visits with Therese and Hilda.  I have learned to deeply appreciate the important roles in they have taken on throughout my development. From my childhood, as adult caretakers and protectors, and in my adulthood, as guides and temporary family psychologists, with whom I may ramble on and sound ideas and thoughts off of and with.

November 2009, I began making weekly trips to visit Grandma Ellsworth, my mother's mother.  She lives alone in the big ol' house I have loved since I was born.  In fact, it is one of the only homes in our family that I have had the pleasure of enjoying for the entire duration of my existence.  It's still the same as it was when I was little, and almost smells the same, too.  Except that it is missing the scent of Grandpa's True cigarettes.  A fragrance I do not miss.

Grandma Ellsworth taught me how to cross-stitch when I was Girl Scout age, and has now taught me the basics of knitting, which I have picked up enthusiastically.  There is such an immense joy and calm in knitting.  A satisfaction that things are being done, and hands are not idle, and talents are being utilized.  The progress is visually present! And you can see how far you have come!

I know that my short visits with Grandma Ellsworth will bring me joy in my mind for the rest of my time.  Time spent has brought many stories of family members I would never have heard of in my collection of family heritage.  Sentimental happiness swells within me, knowing the similarities and differences I can find in myself, through these stories, and even browsing the photo albums she has shared with me. And even though she wouldn't let me clean her bathrooms because I know she cannot, and she has passive aggressively asked me to, but won't let me (see, now I know where I get my passive aggression from; something I am aggressively working on, btw) the little things I am allowed to help her out with, like pulling around the garbage can, and the time I know my grandma is not spending alone, makes the sun shine a little brighter!

March 2010, weekly phone calls to Grandma Walker in Lexington help me to feel my connection with my patriarchal side.  An unfamiliar side.  Being the only two biological females on this side of the family, we have to stick together!  Due to a strange, sometimes estranged, relationship with my dad, I always felt weird around this side.  But not anymore!  Not since I have grown to really like myself.  I mean really like myself.  Not sure if it's the yoga, the running, or the happy relationship I am in.  I just find it easier to be happy these days.

This happiness should be spread around amongst those I love.  Why not?  I love them, and I want them to be happy. Recent studies have shown that happiness is contagious, the same that negativity can be.  If this is true, then why should I not work harder to be happy in my daily life?  If this is true, then I will help those who are in my network to become exponentially happier.

Visiting my Grandma Walker is not just a simple twenty minute car ride like Grandma Ellsworth's is.  It is an hour and a half drive to Lexington.  I am an environmentalist.  I hate driving.  But of course, I will do it for her.  After all, I have missed her at the last two Holiday gatherings in December.  I had not seen my own grandmother in TWO years! Waaay too long.

I found that it was most certainly all worth the drive, sitting in smoke as my Uncle Tony sits by, and worth missing the dinner at my favorite pub with my favorite man, to enjoy a cheap, gross dinner with my grandmother.  It was not the food or the place that mattered one bit, but the company I kept.  We spent a wonderful evening catching up, sharing stories, and discussing the ever mutable topic of life.  Now I have a weekly phone buddy that will always cheer me up, cheer me on. It is possible that I just might brighten her days from time to time... and that makes all the difference in any world.