Untangling

Just like when I was a little girl, visiting my Gram still makes me happy. She is a one-of-a-kind special lady. And even better now, I get to see my girls love her too.

Visits to my Grandma’s house always involve good food, some sort of craftiness, making music, and playing with unconventional toys. My Gram doesn’t throw anything away. Ever. So she has tons of fun stuff for my girls, much of it things they wouldn’t otherwise think to play with (or more accurately, things I wouldn’t normally think to give them to play with). Plastic easter eggs, golf balls, styrofoam egg cartons, a bucket of random lids. And of course her piano. They had a blast.

In her box of goodies for them, I found a God’s eye. I used to make them all the time with my Gram when I was a kid. Turns out the one in her box was one I had made as a girl. 30-ish years ago. Told you she saves everything.

Of course, my Gram got out her yarn and had me saw the pointed end off of some wooden skewers she dug up in her kitchen so she could make God’s eyes for my girls. I helped Miss make her own.

My heart nearly burst from the nostalgia.

As always, I learned a thing or two (or ten) from my Gram during our visit.

See I have a tendency to get somewhat stressed out when we are traveling. Especially when we’re staying at someone else’s home. This comes from a combination of worry about inconveniencing or messing up something for our host, not having the ease of our own super-toddler-proofed space at home, and everyone being extra tired and cranky from travel (I really try to just chill out about this, but it still gets me sometimes).

So. I was getting all freaked because my girls were going nuts with my Gram’s yarn supply, trying to make God’s eyes and then unravelling and playing with it and tangling it all up. I crabbed at them a little bit about messing up Gram’s yarn.

After I got them set up for their naps, I went out to help my Gram get the yarn untangled. I was all set with multiple apologies and offers to untangle the yarn for her by myself. I felt awful that it was such a mess.

But my Gram was already sitting in her chair, peacefully untangling and re-winding up her yarn. The yellow was all over the room. The orange was in knots. The purple and green were hopelessly tangled together. She didn’t even care. Before I even started in with my prepared apologies, she began chatting about how she likes to have things to do with her hands to keep her busy.

I stopped in my tracks and stared at her, all sweet and calm and happily untangling, and I thought, “What the heck was I so stressed out about?? This is how I need to be about tangled yarn and other relatively minor stuff that isn’t worth getting upset over.”

I sat down and gathered up a pile of the yellow yarn and started to untangle and wind it. And I proceeded to have one of the most enjoyable hours I’ve had on this trip. I sat with my Gram and we untangled together and talked.

She talked about her mother. She talked about my Papa. She talked about my Dad, her sister, other people she’s known, the church we went to when I was a little girl, and all sorts of other things. I was honestly sad when the yarn was all neatly wound up and ready to be put away.

I got a beautiful lesson in perspective from my Gram during that hour. I always leave a visit with her feeling amazed. She’s 91 years old and she usually gets more done in a day than I do in a week. But that hour of talking with her was extra special to me. We untangled her yarn, and she untangled me a little bit.

Thanks Gram.