Sandy Supposes....

Dear Viv

PROMPT: Fun Fact Friday! On this day in 1840, the first adhesive postage stamps went on sale in Great Britain. Who would you like to send a letter to, past or present?

         Oh, there are many people that have slipped out of my life, and they all deserve a letter. Death, geography, circumstances, and time have exacted their toll. One woman departed this earth in the prime of her life, leaving a vast void; my mother-in-law, Viv. She succumbed to cancer thirty-two years ago; a month shy of fifty. Wow, I can't imagine her as an eighty-two year old! Soon it will be Mother's Day followed by her birthday. How different our lives would've/could've been. She'd only been a Grandmother for four years, twenty-two months, and one month; the ages of my children when the big 'C' had finished torturing her. In that brief time, she travelled, knitted outfits and doll clothes, and doted on her 'grands'.

          Dear Viv, How are you? It's been much too long since I last wrote to you, and I apologize. Time has played hide and seek with me; one minute I'm scrambling to squeeze just one more moment out of my manic days with my kids, and the next minute I'm a Grandma myself chasing two granddaughters. Ah, you'd love Sydney and Emily. You always wished for more girls. They are Christopher's daughters. Yeah imagine that, he's a father while both of his sisters are content to be aunties. Remember when you'd insist on calling your only grandson, 'Chrissy'? I'm now a Nanna like you. I never liked Granny or Grandma; you are so right. They sound like old lady names!

         The kids recall your British accent most of all. As they saw it, you talked 'funny'. Well, two of them have faint memories; the youngest never did get to know you. Wasn't it marvelous of that nurse to smuggle me and your newborn granddaughter out of the maternity ward, and downstairs to your hospital room, so the two of you could meet? For the last months of your life you were a bed-bound prisoner in that room. First two kids and I, then three kids and I visited you everyday. Your drug cocktails often left you disoriented or sleepy. I know you were in pain, and I felt so helpless. I'd heard that expression " a shadow of their former self", and that was so true of you; damn cancer!

          I will admit you and I didn't see eye to eye when we first met. I did understand you were a single Mom to two boys, and you didn't know how to let go of the reins. I tell people that once you held your first grandchild, I could've been an axe murderer, and you'd have defended me as incapable of doing anything wrong.

         Well, Viv, we're all thriving, and we miss you. Happy Mother's Day and Happy (early) Birthday!