Hold my back, will ya?

When I was little and spent the night with Grandma Ruth, I would always ask her to hold my back. That was my way of asking her to lay behind me with her arms wrapped around me. It was wonderful. I never felt so protected. Before Grandma Ruth went in the nursing home, I spent the night with her every night. I would go home and get ready for bed, then walk across the street to her apartment, then in the morning walk home in my PJs, get ready for school, and then Momma, Neall and I would go back to Grandma's. We got her breakfast and got her ready for the day. Then Momma would come home at lunch and then after school we did the same. My sweet Momma. When I think of all she did for her mother, I just want to cry. I would go out on dates or to do stuff with my friends and come home at 9 at night to help Momma put Grandma to bed, then go back out and then come back to her apartment at curfew. I loved her so much. I just loved her. Everything about her. She was so sweet and so giving and so thoughtful. I loved my Grandma Ruth like I don't think that many love their grandparents. But, that is because of the love in my mother's eyes. I learned from her. I can remember so many details of my grandmother--so many little lovely things.

Now that Emmy is big enough for me to hold her back, I hold her a little tighter because I can almost feel Momma there too. I can almost feel Momma there betwen us and I can almost feel Grandma Ruth behind me holding my back. It is pretty special to have loved someone like I loved Grandma Ruth. I hope that I can somehow explain to Emmy all the love that she and Momma would have had her for her. They would have just been smiten with her sweet smile and the way that she just toddles around now. When she pulls open the cabinet and drags all the Tupperware out, they would have just oh'd and ah'd. When she babbles in the backseat, they would have been there babbling with her. And somehow, I have to put all that in words so that she knows how very loved she is, even if they are not here to tell her.

So I hold her sweet little back and I will tell her about how Grandma Ruth held my back when I was her age and I never, ever felt quite as loved as I did then.