Granny & Papaw.

Granny's eyes were bright blue and her hands were always soft.  I remember her wedding band well enough, but whenever I think about her hands, I always think of her gold and emerald ring (the emerald was her birthstone).  In later years it moved to her forefinger as her skin became thinner, her fingers smaller.  Always dainty, always just enough fingernail length to know she cared for them, kept emery boards nearby.

She smelled like Angel Face powder, Scope and Freedent. On Sunday mornings when I became restless at church, she would give me a piece of gum and twist the foiled wrapper around the end of her finger, fold it this way and that, and then present to me a tiny paper wine-glass shaped cup .  I never did figure out how she could do that.  Church, when I was four, consisted of Crayolas in a plastic sandwich bag, Mead notepads, and a handful of quarters I was allowed to drop when the "money plate" came around during the Lord's Supper.

If it is possible to genetically pass such a trait, she is definitely the person from whom my literature obsession is inherited.  She was a faithful penpal and wrote letters to many, never missing a birthday, an anniversary, a sickness, a death, or a thank-you.  Hallmark owes a lot of business to Granny.  So does Papermate -- she used to buy the soft-grip pens in blue.  I always liked them because of the two tiny hearts on the clip.  I don't think they make that particular style anymore.

She also loved to read.  She was constantly in the middle of two or three books at once, and though in my youth I could never understand how she kept up with so many characters in so many worlds at once, I find myself doing the very same thing today.  She read the Bible all the way through once every single year, a very dedicate Christian woman to the core.  Words were one of her true loves.  She solved Jeopardy questions, Wheel of Fortune puzzles, and crosswords in record time.  She was brilliantly intelligent and taught herself well beyond her tenth grade level of education.

She's the only person who could ever cook eggs the way I liked them.  She let me turn the handle on the flour sifter even though sometimes I missed the bowl.  She pointed her finger warningly at me through the back window as she was washing dishes whenever I began to swing too high in the swingset out back, the set that had somehow survived so many grandchildren over the years.  She rubbed my back and recited Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Little Red Riding Hood, and The Little Red Hen to me when I couldn't fall to sleep.  The Little Red Hen was our favorite.

And Papaw. 

Papaw made the best milkshakes in the universe and his grilled hamburgers were a force to be reckoned with.  He would have lived outside if Granny had let him and only came in when it was lightning and stormy outside.  Naturally, when Papaw stood outside on the porch to watch thunderstorms, I would be anxious to be outside, too, because I have always loved storms, but Granny always felt that Papaw standing outside on a porch watching a storm was probably setting a bad example for the grandchild with her nose smushed against the screen door.  Papaw would reluctantly come in and sit in his chair, but the door would be left open behind him and we could smell the summer air, full of humidity and electricity.

He raked leaves into enormous piles and didn't mind if I jumped in them.  I would take a running leap, jump, and the leaves would fly up cartoonishly and scatter all about.  Papaw would just laugh and shake his head and remind me to be careful.  He didn't mind raking them up after I had wrecked them -- once, twice, goodness knows how many times.

He watched The Price is Right every single day.  I remember staying with them during the summer while Mom went to work, curling up on a pallet in the middle of the floor with a can of Pringles and watching The Price is Right on TV.  I never understood how people remembered the prices of all those products, and Plinko was my favorite game.  I cheered for people when they won a brand new caaaar.

In the middle of the day, I would go outside with Papaw and we'd let Max out of his pen.  Max had been my dog originally but due to a shift in policy and an altercation with our landlord, Mom and Dad decided it would be best for Max to stay with Papaw and Granny.  Max would run around the house several times, "stretching his legs" as Papaw would say, and then Papaw and Max would go beyond the old barn and pick blackberries while I trailed behind playing and making up my own stories or songs as I followed.  I'm still not sure how I grew up with a distaste for blackberries when literally everyone else on that side of the family melted into a happy puddle whenever Granny would cook blackberry cobbler or make blackberry jam.

I loved going to the carport because usually there were birds' nests in there.  Papaw would put on gloves, pick up a birds' nest out of a crook between planks of wood, and show me the flightless baby birds, all beaks and eyes and stretchy-necks -- and terrified, I'm sure.  I wanted to pet them but Papaw always told me that if the Mama bird could smell a human on one of her babies, she wouldn't take care of it anymore.  I would quickly put my hands behind my back, afraid of being responsible for a baby bird's demise, but my hands itched with childhood anticipation.

I miss them so much.
How long after you lose someone do the dreams stop?
September 23, 2007 -- Granny.
September 4, 2008 -- Papaw.

The dreams come and go. I'll go a couple of weeks without them at a time but then they come back for several nights in a row and I'll wake up crying, like tonight.  I still feel like part of my heart is missing -- they were my second set of parents. They raised and taught me just as much as my parents did.  They considered me to be baby #8 (my mother, the youngest of the Cabler children, was baby #7).

It would be different if I felt remorse, if I felt guilt.  Maybe I didn't visit enough, maybe I could have done more for them, something like that -- but that isn't it at all.  I was there constantly, I ran errands to get them food, I helped them out in every way I could -- except taking them to doctor's appointments, which was always left up to Uncle Kenny or my Aunt Linda or my mom -- so I really have no regrets at all.  I know that I cared for them and loved them and did all that I could. 

So why the constant dreams?  Yes, I miss them, and no, I'm not saying I want to forget about them or to push this aside, but I have always heard that it gets easier with time.  While the initial shock from losing them has faded away, the everyday heartache has not -- at all.

Neither of them would approve of me fussing so much over them, of stressing so much over something of which I have no control...

...I just miss them so much.  Still.
...always.