Mulling
over a problem, I find myself gazing at a picture hanging by my desk:
an
old photograph my grandmother pasted onto blue construction paper,
framed, and once had decorating her bedroom: a picture of her house
after a snowfall, taken I don't know when, but long ago. It's from
the street, looking up a snow-covered drive flanked by frosted,
leafless linden trees, toward the house: on the left a white
three-story barn, with an open door big enough to drive into, and
connecting, on the right via a hallway, to a white three-story house.
In
the frame below the picture is a blessing, author unknown, cut from a
magazine, I suppose, and pasted in:
“God
bless the walls that hold this house, God bless the warmth within,
God
bless the doors that open wide to stranger and to kin,
God
bless each shining window pane, God bless the roof above,
And
keep all those who enter here safe within His love.”
Eyes
glazing, I am there, disappearing from here, into the picture: it is
snowing hard and night's approaching; I'm wading through drifts up
the drive; the barn's gaping mouth swallowing me. Stomping off snow
I see firewood stacked, waiting, against a wall. I take an armful,
knowing she'll be needing it, and turning into the hall, entering by
the kitchen's back door, out of the dark, blessing the light, the
warming flames crackling in the fireplace, the room smelling of
apples and cinnamon, pies on the table cooling: my grandmother's
kitchen welcoming me home.
What
I know of loving begins in that kitchen: no formal lessons, just
observing actions, watching my grandmother loving and caring, caring
for her sister as she lay dying and her father-in-law through his
aging, caring for her husband and her only child—my mother—and,
above all else, loving her grandchildren. Her home is my home, her
meals my meals, her love my love, unconditional loving, all given to
me. Picturing, drawing me back to a place, I don't know when, but
long ago, and life is safe, life is sane, life is loving, and loving
is life.
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