My grandchildren were over recently, before our early Christmas celebration, before the hassle of the illnesses we’ve had, before the travel. It was a typical Friday, a cold day, and before I started giving my grandson his piano lesson my granddaughter said, “I’m going outside to play. OK?”
“Sure, honey.”
Five minutes later she was in again.
“Grandma, do you have some gloves I could wear? It’s colder out than I thought.”
I gave her a pair of my mittens. Turns out she had a “job to do,” and she picked up lots of twigs on the ground that a very strong wind had blown around.
“And I wanted to check Snuggles’ grave,” she said, “to make sure the sticks around it were still there.
On the day she and her brother came over to decorate our beloved cat’s grave, she had encircled the grave with sticks. Snuggles’ final resting place up on the hill is duly marked.
I got to thinking about those mittens after she came in, had her piano lesson, then after we took them home that evening. We so often say “walking or following in someone’s footsteps,” but in this case she mittened in my handprints. I love the fact that her little hands have warmed my mittens.
