Meditation #23

Dear Lecta,

You were the grandmother
I never knew.  I wonder often
at that name, and how it might have felt
to call you “Grandma” or “Grammy”
and to know you that way
instead of superficially
as just a marvelous name
from the mystery of my father’s past.
I wonder if I would think of you
more or less often today.
As it is, all I do is consider you
as a fact, a thread to be tugged
as I unravel my way forward.  There’s
never been any sense of anything more.

Except for this:

somehow, you knew how to make sweet tea.
And you taught my dad.  And he taught my mother,
and he said it’s good but not quite the same.
And it’s almost summer and I love sweet tea and suddenly,
I have a desperate need to know how to make it
exactly the way you did.

So if you are reading this,
Lecta,
I’d love to know how my Grammy
made her sweet tea.
It’s almost summer.
Please write soon.

Yours,
T