Sometimes life flies over you like a B-17 bomber, the sirens go off, and something or someone you always counted on is suddenly gone. (Angela Webster)
My daughter Angela is one of my favorite bloggers. (Her blog is linked to the article title below.) She writes. She photographs. And she designs. Spring break brought her home to us so we celebrated early Grampsy’s sweet life and heavenly birthday over heaping bowls of oversized ice cream sundaes in his honor. While scrolling through her posts, I found this treasure in her archives written two years ago.
It so beautifully describes the tender and mutually adoring relationship she shared with my dad and how his death shattered her pink and blue childhood illusion of the world and happily ever after. Life and death- so much paradox on this side of eternity.
Baby Blue and Powder Pink
by Angela Webster
He would crouch down on the floor beside me, pinching the plastic four-inch grandpa doll between his thumb and forefinger. They resembled one another—the doll and the man—both clad in a powdery blue button down shirts and khakis, both gray-crowned and gangly. The doll, however, had a mustache. My grandpa did not.
“Goodbye, see you later,” I would wave enthusiastically on behalf of the mommy and daddy dolls before helping them into the ridiculous blue and pink minivan. For some strange reason, the Loving-Family dollhouse artists fixated on baby blue and powder pink. With the parents out for the evening, the grandpa doll and his granddaughter were free. Usually, they meandered down the imaginary street to the imaginary ice cream shop where the grandpa doll bought his granddaughter an imaginary treat. While she licked her vanilla ice cream cone, my grandpa and I would munch on cheerios and he would tell me stories about the Great Depression. Then, our dolls walked to the park. With my help, the granddaughter would situate herself on the single swing and the grandpa—shaking in between my grandpa’s fingers—would push her back and forth.
Eventually, the girl and her grandpa would wander back to the pink and blue three-story house and take a nap. The parents would return and all would be well. In the shelter of the pink and blue mansion, every ending was a happy one.
But houses aren’t really pink and blue.
It’s strange to think that Fisher-Price—the company that produced my dollhouse and plasticized my fairytales—also manufactured ammunition crates and repair parts for fighter planes in World War II. Somewhere in Germany, there was a real house and a loving family sleeping inside when the air raid sirens startled them out of their dreams. If they were lucky, they scrambled down into the bomb shelter in time. When they came out, the house was gone.
Maybe fairy-tales only exist in plastic.
Sometimes life flies over you like a B-17 bomber, the sirens go off, and something or someone you always counted on is suddenly gone.
It’s been over a decade since my grandpa and I played doll-house. Today, the Loving-Family grandpa doll rests peacefully in a cardboard box in an upstairs closet, the eternal smile and mustache still stamped across his face. Old, but never older.
My grandpa died of a heart attack nine years ago.
February 27. The day my mom’s address changed to Heaven. We celebrate all of the grandparent’s heavenly birthdays every year. It is our way of being intentional about remembering the significance of their lives interwoven into ours. To acknowledge their legacy.
Lily gifted me a very special present today. Her DNA. It hung around her neck on a rope as she wandered out to the van from biology lab.
It might not seem like a big deal to her but it’s a wonder to me. That tiny morsel of white stuff is what made Lily Lily and it originated from a unique combination of Daddy and I under the supervisory design of God himself.
Friday, I hug one goodbye and she boards a bus. Again. Second time this month. I cry half the way home and she’s only gone for a couple of days. Is it hormones or anticipatory grieving? Maybe it’s worry. What will she injure this time? Whatever the cause, tears are a mama’s prerogative.
On Sunday, he marries his high school sweetheart against the odds. It’s all very enchanting. From the snowflakes dancing in the wind to the Valentine’s red bridesmaid dresses, the heart shaped Dove candy and the adoring gazes intermingled with passionate embraces, I’m watching these sacred moments and contemplating the way romance morphs as it is seasoned by years and soldered by commitment.
Later, after the festivities wind down, I take one of my “littles” to the airport, hug her at the gate and smile as she walks into the jet bridge to board her plane. Alone. She’s flying back to Texas to get her braces off. I try to be brave but tears have a way of ignoring courage. And I realize she’s growing up too. Taking flight. Literally.
So tonight, the littlest princess crawls in my bed, hugging her brown bear called “Choco” in one arm and “Oreo” the mangy black and white panda in the other. And I snuggle in next to her and savor the moment.
50+ Musings 