let your heart be light

We were huddled in the dark, letting the subaru stretch, when I heard Lexi whimpering.

"Things are never going to be the same. Our time with Ammy and Papa."

I sat quietly, my mind racing towards something comforting to say, something to refute the obvious. But she was right: My Grandma has moved into what was once my room, and the burden feels heavy, even to my 4th grader.

Lexi adores my parents, loves staying with them in the 'country'. She chose extracurriculum activities during the school week, just so she could spend many weekends in the fall with Ammy, sewing, baking, talking her ear off.

The first planned sleepover was halted by a phone call; my Mom in a panic, racing my Grandma to the ER.

(She spent the next two months closing my Grandma's business, living away from my Dad.)

Nothing turned out like Lexi had hoped. It's a big lesson to learn.

I didn't try to spin it, feed her some hogwash. I let her cry, grieve over the summer she had, when she was the center of my Mom's world. And then we turned to what is and we dialed the phone number I've known all my life and set up an sleepover for next week.

_____

We had dinner with my family last night, after my nephew's fabulous superhero birthday party and a prefunct celebration of my own. (On my 32nd birthday, I witnessed my nephew come into the world. Amazing.)

My Grandma was perched, ready to spring into action, take over. She's biding her time, declawed, waiting to take over again. Like it's a bad dream.

I wish she was kinder. She isn't.

_____

I was listening to some morose Carpenters' Christmas CD. I turned it off, enjoyed the silence. When I looked up again, it had started to snow.

The solitude was punctuated with squeals.