The Hollyhock House

Grandmother’s house was little and warm. It was humble and low and old fashioned, and settled beside wide sweeping farmland.

Inside was Grandmother, and warmth and safety and homemade Popsicles, a garbage pail and the scent of Grandfather’s ointment spilling out the happiness in that house. Grandmother was soft and wrinkled and busy, and always aproned in blue checks embroidered with cross-stitch done by her own hands and with dimming eyesight. She talked mostly to the grown ups around, but she knew without asking when it was time to lay a loving hand on the head of the little girl and little boy who came there to visit. And she knew when it was time to hand them another Popsicle.

In all these many years since as Grandmother sleeps, and the little girl and the little boy have long since become woman and man, the scent of Hollyhocks roll back the years for the woman and the day returns again when the tiny yard around the hollyhock house seems like a large part of the wonderful, beautiful world. She again hears the bees humming, the birds making their conversation. She sees the sunshine, the hollyhocks, the iris, and the peonies, so sweet their memory lingers forever through dozens of summers since, and the woman knows again a moment of perfect beauty and security that is unspoiled by the knowledge that comes with time.

The woman’s children coming to her for “more” reminds the woman of her childhood playmate and brother, both now with silver hair and she hears again his bid for another Popsicle. And together hand in hand she sees the little boy and girl together in memory approaching Grandmother with a wordless plea for more, and the sweet safe memory fades away, and in it’s place are eight outstretched hands reaching out towards the woman, and she hears them calling her by her new name, “Grandma.”

And it reminds her that the hollyhock house still stands, and the springtime and summer sun will shine again, and a new generation of birds sing, but she knows that only the enchanted eyes of childhood will ever see it as it lives in her and the little boy’s memory.

The busy little grandmother is no more on earth, but the woman sees her plainly, uniting one by one with those who join her, and waiting with God for her child and the generations that have come and will continue to come.

And the scent of hollyhocks grows sweet and heavy…

Visiting Grandmother's final resting place...