Singing With Grammie T

Illustration by Paul R. Sherburne

There was an upright piano in the farm living room with its sheer, white curtains that still allowed the bright, morning Maine light inside. The sheet music stood propped open: When the Red, Red, Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin Along, and I’m Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover.

My grandmother was Grammie, plump around the middle, wearing a bib apron over her house dress, her light gray hair a cap that rolled into a curl to softly frame her face, her narrow feet laced into black shoes with sturdy heels for support, and gold, rimless glasses her fingers trembled at putting on, while she asked us, "What have you young’uns been up to?"*

Her soprano voice warbled as her small hands, wrinkled and worn from work—but soft to touch—slid to press down the white and black keys making the music jump into the air. My sister and I had fun singing with Grammie.

I’m now older than Grammie, at that time. I say my prayers, which include singing each morning in a small lobby located on the first floor of my Indian home that’s there to protect the stairs from rain running under the roof veranda door. One morning, as I began to sing, I heard my Grammie T. singing along with me. I could see her, in her bib apron, in my inner vision. Surprise and joy widened my eyes. Of course she wouldn’t have known the song—yet across the dimensions that separated her soul and my human body she sang them. God and the masters of the universe, bringing her back to her granddaughter…

My realization is, "There is mystery, there is inner vision, there is imagination, and there is more beyond my awareness—and all understanding vanishes in a moment."

* A Flower for God