A view from the playhouse

I love fall for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is the light. Right now I'm sitting in the playhouse Ken Cannon is building for our granddaughters, looking through a window at the vines glowing green and amber.

I'm also thinking of my grandmother, an October baby, who loved this season best of all. When I was a little girl, she was my everything. No matter what I had to say, she listened. As I grew older, though, I found her interest in me intrusive. And, it must be said, I think she resented at a certain level that I was growing up . . . and because I was growing up I didn't turn to her the way I had when I was younger.

Our relationship became complicated.

I've told this story before, but the last time I ever saw my grandmother, I was angry with her. She'd come up to the house to help us load the truck when we moved to New York. (Yes. She was in her 80's and still capable of loading up trucks.) Grandma was full of advice about our impending move, which I didn't want, and by the time we rolled away in our U-Haul, I was barely speaking to her.

Fast forward to the autumn of 1993. My friend Becky called me in New York to say that she'd seen my grandmother and that she looked so thin. I called my mother who said that Grandma had lost her appetite, that she couldn't swallow, that she had esophageal cancer and everyone was deciding what to do next.

I talked to her a number of times, of course, and she still peppered me with advice.

"Do you have enough toilet paper in the house there? You should buy it in bulk."

Thanksgiving day I called her and after our conversation I said, "I love you, Grandma."

She paused, then simply said, "I know." She died the following day.

Those words came back to me this afternoon like a gift. That my grandmother loved me was never in doubt. And it comforts me to think she knew in the end that yes-- I loved her, too.