Once in awhile we have the opportunity to consciously make a memory. This is rare, but it does happen. When it does, I try my best not to let it pass.
My grandmother always loved babies. I think that’s why she had nine of them. But obviously time passes, and the babies inevitably grew up. They had their own babies, and she was happy again for awhile. Then those babies grew up, too.
When the time came for them to start having babies, she was growing old.
When my daughter was born, my frail little grandmother ventured out in 20 degree weather to see her at the hospital. She came in with her walker, guided by my aunt, and sat down in a chair. We handed her my daughter and for the next hour I don’t think her eyes ever left her face. Maybe once, to comment on how beautiful the baby was. But that was all.
Later that night, as I was rocking my newborn to sleep while my husband ran out to get food, I sang “The Way You Look Tonight”, crying as I did so. I was overwhelmed with love, and the first song that came into my head was a Frank Sinatra song I had first heard from my grandmother. Already it seemed a torch had been passed.
Two months later, my grandmother was the one in the hospital. It wasn’t the first time, of course. But it would be the last.
Even when we knew it was the end, my family brought her home. She wanted to be home. When she could do little more than sleep, she wanted to be in her own bed surrounded by the people she loved.
By this point I felt comfortable bringing my baby out and about. I brought her to see my grandmother as often as I could. Even at her weakest, my grandmother always lit up when she saw her. Sometimes she even tried to play with her. It probably took up all her energy, but it made her happy. And my baby would always smile.
One day, for just a little while, it was just the three of us. My grandmother was resting in her chair, her eyes on the baby in my arms. And since my daughter was cranky, I tried to make them both happy. I put on a Frank Sinatra station on Pandora and began to sway with her in my arms.
The first song that came on, of course, was “The Way You Look Tonight”.
And as I sang along and watched my baby calm down and close her eyes while my grandmother nodded along with a small smile, I knew this was a memory.
By the end of the song they had both drifted into a peaceful sleep, and I sat there wide awake and aware that if what I had learned in school was true, I was between two people so close to heaven, but in opposite directions. And even though there were three of us in that room, the memory would only last for me.