Random story and gratitude

I have a birthmark on the big knuckle of my right index finger. An irregular splotch of melanin on an otherwise redhead-pale hand that, if you squint, *might* look like the top half of South America.

When I was a baby, just brought home from the hospital, my grandmother tried to wash it off. She was convinced it was some sort of dirt, a small stain of iodine (or something)that somehow fell only on my wee baby-sized knuckle. I know this not from memory of course but from having been told, at some point in the past, and remembering the telling in a strange concrete way that almost becomes memory, except you know that it isn't.

I can picture it, quite vividly. My tiny grandmother (my grandfather built her cupboards shorter just for her and everyone in the family has to stoop to do the dishes there) gently holding a tinier me and scrubbing away at the offending mark. I picture my baby-self cuddled into her soft pillowiness and wondering what the fascination was with my finger and why was she scratching at it when everything else about this moment was warm and soft and comforting.

My grandmother has always been soft to me. Her skin always feels powdery and well cared for while her substance, her flesh and body has always been just slightly rounded, pliable, welcoming, cuddle-able. No harsh angles, nothing hard about her. She is still that way, getting a little softer all the time - as people do. But she has softened too in her ways of dealing with the world. She tears up now every time we grandchildren, and great grandchildren leave for far off homes (and not so far off homes). I imagine she wonders now when she might see us again. (Or "if"? Perhaps at her age it becomes "if" though I choose not to think about that).

I have realized in recent years just how lucky I was to have four living grandparents so far into my life. I've lost one now and it was more difficult than I was ready for and I know everyone is getting older... but it was truly wonderful to be able to know them all as the bullet-proof, wonderful, magical Santa Claus types a child remembers but then have the opportunity to get to know them again as an adult.

I am very grateful for that.