Dear Grandma Pauline,<\/p>\n
It has been years since<\/p>\n
you were called home.<\/p>\n
I miss your quiet strength,<\/p>\n
and your beautiful, kind spirit.<\/p>\n
You were always the best combination<\/p>\n
of Southern sass, heart, and grace.<\/p>\n
I remember when you would<\/p>\n
take my hand and<\/p>\n
walk with me<\/p>\n
to the store<\/p>\n
down the street<\/p>\n
and give me money to buy<\/p>\n
“a little knick knack”.<\/p>\n
And when you would make<\/p>\n
homemade biscuits in the mornings –<\/p>\n
fresh, flaky, and hot.<\/p>\n
We would poke a hole in them,<\/p>\n
pour in the thick, sticky sweetness<\/p>\n
of Cane Patch syrup,<\/p>\n
and eat until we couldn’t hold any more,<\/p>\n
licking the goodness off our fingers<\/p>\n
when we were done.<\/p>\n
Or when we would sit on the front porch,<\/p>\n
you in a rocker,<\/p>\n
and me and the other kids on the porch swing,<\/p>\n
drinking Coca Cola and sweet tea,<\/p>\n
or eating melting icy popsicles,<\/p>\n
the heat sweltering even in the shade.<\/p>\n
But we didn’t care.<\/p>\n
Grandma’s house was the place to be.<\/p>\n
There are so many other memories,<\/p>\n
so many other stories I could tell,<\/p>\n
and each them has its own place<\/p>\n
on the shelf in my heart.<\/p>\n
I wish you were still here,<\/p>\n
that I could sit with you<\/p>\n
over a plate of blueberry cobbler<\/p>\n
and vanilla ice cream,<\/p>\n
or even while shelling butter beans,<\/p>\n
and we could talk again.<\/p>\n
I’d want you to meet you great grandchildren;<\/p>\n
my son, an amazing young man<\/p>\n
who likes to work with his hands,<\/p>\n
and a heart that’s full of goodness.<\/p>\n
And my baby girl, a teen full of character,<\/p>\n
her presence and attitude larger than life,<\/p>\n
with unique hazel eyes just like my dad’s,<\/p>\n
your son, who is the reason<\/p>\n
I knew you<\/p>\n
and your light,<\/p>\n
and I’m so grateful to be your family.<\/p>\n
I knew you would have loved them<\/p>\n
as much as you loved us,<\/p>\n
as much as you loved me,<\/p>\n
and they would have loved you, too.<\/p>\n
I hope you look down and smile at them,<\/p>\n
at all of us,<\/p>\n
and know that we can’t wait to see you someday.<\/p>\n
It was hard when you left,<\/p>\n
and it was difficult to see you slip slowly away,<\/p>\n
your health deteriorating before our eyes,<\/p>\n
the bright spirit fading as physical pain,<\/p>\n
and grief over Grandpa’s passing<\/p>\n
took their toll on your mind and your body.<\/p>\n
But you still shone with inner beauty,<\/p>\n
the spark and glow of your beautiful soul<\/p>\n
never dimming,<\/p>\n
even when the darkness came<\/p>\n
and took you away from us.<\/p>\n
You still live in our thoughts,<\/p>\n
and pictures still remind us of you.<\/p>\n
Though we are apart now,<\/p>\n
I will be more than ready to hug you and hold tight,<\/p>\n
and I’m sure there will be line behind me,<\/p>\n
waiting to do the same.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Grandma Pauline, It has been years since you were called home. I miss your quiet strength, and your beautiful, kind spirit. You were always the best combination of Southern sass, heart, and grace. I remember when you would take my hand and walk with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,441],"tags":[3442,23,31,392],"class_list":["post-65038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-poetry-prompt-responses","tag-2020poetrymarathon","tag-life","tag-love","tag-writing-prompts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71966,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65038\/revisions\/71966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}