Ode to Grandma

In my grandparents’ house, the wind chimes hung indoors, in the dining room. Behind them a window separated a row of potted succulents and a gauzy shade from the small lawn beyond, its plush grass encircled by hostas and the low branches of hemlocks. A grapevine fell from the roof of the house in one corner of the yard. It would have been a lovely place for the chimes to live. They were long-limbed, made of a thick metal that rang out an elegant progression of notes in the octave right around middle C. When supplied a breeze by my fingers, they returned the favor with a melodious song.

My grandparents bought that house the year I was born; 22 years later, not long after I graduated from college a few blocks away, they sold it. In the coinciding of their departure and my setting up my first apartment, I inherited pots, utensils, tablecloths and placemats, a mirror, and even my great grandmother’s kitchen table. To my delight, included in the boxes my grandmother drove over to my new home were the wind chimes, wrapped in a blanket for padding. Why she didn’t want to keep them puzzled me; but then so did their placement in her home.

Today, years later, sitting in a patch of sun in my backyard on the first warm day of the year, I think I have it pretty good: leaning back in a butterfly chair, book propped open on my folded legs, Vitamin-D soaking into my skin, green vines dripping over the fences on either side of me, my place in the world seems pretty good. And then the wind rustles the still barren branches above me, and it’s warm so I don’t shiver; and it’s strong, so I hear those same chimes begin to twinkle their little song at me. It’s been too many months since I could sit outside; it’s been too many months since I have visited my grandma; but in this moment, I close the book and close my eyes, and I can see her standing in the kitchen, watching me bring music to the metal that has no wind to blow song into it. Each chiming note brings her nearer to me, and as I watch her watching me, I still don’t understand why she kept them indoors, but I think I understand why she gave the chimes away. It had nothing to do with her wanting or not wanting them; it had everything to do with wanting me to have whatever it is I love.