Tender Mercies

How can it possibly be over a year since I last blogged!? It is sort of sad now, come to think of it, all of the things I should have written down that have happened in the past year that I will probably forget because I neglected to write them down, oh well, c'est la vie. There are some things however, that have happened that I wish I could remember always, little happy moments, tender mercies if you will, and I had one of those tonight and it is definitely blog worthy.
My gran. She is probably the woman I love the very most in this world. All grans are gems and she is my last and I am determined to hold on to her forever. Some of my very fondest memories from my childhood involve both her and my grandpa. I can see them both very vividly in my memory catalog, helping me on the teeter totter, spinning me on the merry go round. I can also see them planting their garden, canning, and dehydrating their harvest. I have memories of floating on inner tubes in their flooded yard when the irrigation water was at its highest. Some of my best memories with my gran though, involve music. My gran has always been a lover of music. As a young girl growing up in Rigby, she and her sisters were very talented when it came to music. Her sisters played the violin while she played the piano and they used to do a lot of singing and entertaining for people. My gran has a beautiful voice, loud and low with a style all her own. She has always loved musicals. She was the one who introduced me to the classics like: The Sound of Music, The Music Man, The King and I, Mary Poppins, White Christmas, and The Road to Bali. Any show that has musical interludes, a great cast, and dancing scenes, are favorites of my gran. Most of these movies, as well as all of the classic jazz standards and music from the 40s and 50s, I gained a love for through my gran, because we enjoy a lot of the same things. I love watching my gran watch movies or listen to music that she loves because she has a very infectious laugh and it is one sound that I will always have imprinted on my memory.
When my gran had her stroke a few years back, her memory took a huge toll. While her body is as healthy as ever, her memory tends to get the best of her and she basically wakes up every day just to learn things over that she learned the day before. She has some long-term memories that are locked up and can be coaxed out occasionally, but as for people and places and just things in general, she has her struggles. But there's never a day that she lets that get her down. She keeps a smile on her face and she is quick to laugh at herself rather than getting upset. You can probably imagine how this scenario plays out for my grandpa though, who has to constantly remind her of things and answer the same question several times a day, everyday. He is a very patient and loving husband and grandpa and I am grateful for him.
Here is my tender mercy. Tonight was the Priesthood session of General Conference and while my grandpa attended, gran and I got to spend some time together. I read her a fascinating article about trees, I think I was more fascinated than she was but she humored me and just kept a smile on her face the whole time. Then I suggested a movie, a musical, something with dancing! Mary Poppins fit the bill perfectly. It was a movie that I had watched many times at her house as a child and I can pull out those memory cards in my memory catalog again, and vividly see her watching me, waiting for my reaction to her favorite parts of the movie the first few times that I watched it with her.
Well, tonight, our roles were reversed. I put on Mary Poppins and now found that I was the one watching her reactions to all of my favorite parts. I can remember the movie, I practically know it by heart, but as far as my gran knew, it was her first time watching it, that is, until it came to "A Spoonful of Sugar". Up to that point she had been watching wide eyed and laughing at all the funny parts, but when that song came on, she started to sing along! I was amazed! I was speechless! I was, so very, very grateful.
I will never know what things are going through her mind, and I dread the day that she forgets my face and who I am, but for that single moment we shared a seemingly silly bond. She was my childhood gran and I was her wide eyed granddaughter, and the world was right again.
I don't know what either of our futures hold. I don't know if we will ever have another moment like that but I will take what I get and treasure the memories and file them away in my memory catalog under the file labeled, "Tender Mercies".