Bed and oven, Jan. 28, 1996

Grampa and I had quite a day on Friday.  It started out like any other morning, but after breakfast I decided we should start using our new exerciser.  So - I got on the machine and Grampa sat on the corner of the twin bed, and creak-crash!  The corner of the bed caved in!  The side rail cracked the whole length - such a surprised look on Grampa's face.

We did our exercising anyway.

Then it was time to get lunch - a new recipe.  I had things most ready for the oven (which I had turned on) - the phone rang - a salesman - and when I got rid of him and turned around - there was a lot of smoke coming from the oven.  I started opening windows - the smoke alarm finally went off.  The smoke alarm, attached to the burglar alarm, started screeching and the phone rang.  It was the alarm company wanting to see if everything was OK.  Well - by this time, Grampa finally came into the kitchen - he had been watching a cooking show.  Probably thought the smell and smoke came from the show.  So I couldn't put our dinner in the oven till I cleaned the oven - so we had something else to eat.

Then - it came time to clean the oven - what a job!  When I had rendered down some suet for the birds, unbeknownst to me, it had leaked into the oven - hence - the smoke and smell.  Or maybe the oven just needed cleaning.  So in order to clean the oven, I practically had to climb into it.  As my hindender was sticking out and my head was well into the oven - the thought came to me - where are Hansel and Gretel.  I don't want them to come push me into the oven!

This letter puts a smile on my face every time I read it - what a day!  We all have occasional days like this, where one thing after another seems to go wrong.  It can be hard to let go and laugh at the end of such a day, but I can see the smile on Gram's face as she wondered where Hansel and Gretel were.

In later years she would sometimes tell me, "I had to laugh, or else I'd cry."  Life got harder as she and Grampa got older - as it does for most of us.  Friends and family depart, our bodies no longer behave the way we expect them to, our minds do not always obey us, either.   But when we can take a breath and ponder for a moment, it helps to find a bit of humor among the other emotions crowding our minds.  True, Grammie was not always able to do this as she aged, but I still feel it is she who most often revealed this wisdom.