Grandmother

Sitting in a rocker, the sense of ageless-ness whispers to me; the homey feeling that radiates from the threshing table, where the Threshers sat for dinner after coming in from the fields almost a hundred years ago. From the shelves overflowing with books, newspapers, and plants, to the five-legged oak table whose leaves have been dropped so it can hug the textured wall.

Grandma's voice, is a little crackly and fuzzy, but very much full of life, I engrave it into my mind. Her Norwegian heritage shows through as she makes the W's and the R's sound wobbly and deeper. There is oldness in her voice, but something in it makes me feel the awakening of spring and the quiet, silence of winter. The constant growth of summer, and the ever changing, brilliant colors of fall.

Her white hair streaked with gray-brown, wisps around her head like a cloud. She's sitting like a twenty-year-old college student. Leaning on the table, drinking from a cup of coffee, her left thumb idly stroking the glass, her right hand fisted, her head resting on it.

Sitting in the old pinkish-brown laz-y-boy from the farm, the smell of homemade chicken soup, plants, and sheets wafts around me. A wobbly writing table with engraved legs and a white china knob to open a small drawer stands to my left. A grandma-green couch rests opposite of the wall with the oak table where mom and grandma sit talking about vitamins.

The table at the other end of the couch is round, with a lovely African Violet in a brown pot; purple and white striped flowers blooming cheerfully. A chair piled with handmade bears guards the second book shelf, which is filled with books and overflowing with ivy, rosemary, thyme, chives, lemon grass, a pink begonia from my uncle when Grandma was in the hospital and a golden sedum. Light flows in from he window the plants rest comfortably under while sitting on top of the shelf. The crystal prisms hanging above the greenery throw flashes of rainbow across the walls and the two speakers.

A fake pine sits cheerfully in the corner decorated in red painted wood ornaments, straw handmade birds and reindeer, crocheted and starched white snowflakes and angels.

My grandmother turns to me and jokes that there is a lot of pressure on me since I am the last grandchild to graduate from High School and College, and of course, must do both.

They talk about Danny Bertred who "goes through wives like nobody's business". We talk about Aunt Judy who had "boys camping on the door step" and Elden Bergman who was "madder 'en hell when Judy broke up with him."