Today was my grandmother's birthday. She would have been 83. I feel lucky to have some things that belonged to her - a few pieces of jewelry, the ridiculous huge wooden fork and spoon that were on the wall over her breakfast table as long as I can remember, many pieces of her amethyst glass collection, boxes of recipes she clipped. Today I touched my necklace a lot, and thought of making meatballs and biscotti, and remembered camping trips and the smell of her house and the doll she gave me when I was two. I remembered big bouncy balls, the same kind they still sell in those huge cages in toy stores. I thought of the last time I visited her, when I cooked breakfast for her instead of the other way around. I considered how I wished I had known her better, lived closer, visited more often.
I do not know if she had a favorite poet, but the brevity and austerity of Emily Dickinson seems appropriate, and I do think she was, herself, a "courteous yet harrowing grace."
