"I Love Her The Best"

She lively stepped on stage this mother of a brood of boys, grandmother of 6, in her flouncy red Sunday dress, and set her two-tone gray felt, open-mouthed Target-trendy bag on the floor.

Bringing the microphone to her lips she greeted us, "Hello and good afternoon, everyone, I'M GRAMMY PAM!"

Applause, applause.  Applause dies down, she grins a big cheesy grin, "And you need to remember that!  Grammy....Pam!"  

"You see, I have the sweetest granddaughter, full of energy, imagination, and quite smart.  I babysat her the other day.  Her mother was sick, so granddaughter came to my house."

She turns and waves a hello to everyone, then reaches down in the bag and pulls out a string of pearls and drops them over her head. 

"Granddaughter sweetly asked, "Where's the drawing paper?"  I went to the computer and gave her 3 sheets of white 8 x 11 papers."

She reaches down into that same bag and pulls out a gray sweater into which she shimmies.

"And I need your crayons, where's your crayons, GrammyPam?"  So I went to my shelf of coloring books and crayons and gave her the container."

The lady on stage reaches in that bag again and pulls out a wig of short springy silver hair and tucks her long locks up into it.

"Granddaughter told me, "I want a color page of a leaf seahorse". 

She looks at the audience, "What on earth is a LEAF seahorse?  Do you know?  Me neither.  But she knew."

"We went to my computer, and BTW, it is mine, I purchased it.  Darling Hubby has his own in his den and we like it that way".  Here she winks at us like its a conspiracy that we're all in on -- when hubby retires, spouses go to their separate corners for bits of time and peace of mind.

"This computer is mine.  So, I typed "Leaf Seahorse" into the address bar, and her little fingers did a scrolling motion on the screen until I moved the pages down far enough that she found the perfect pic. I know it's perfect because granddaughter jumps & squeals, "There!"

"My fingers hit copy, file, print, and out came a picture of a seahorse hiding in a mess of soft mushy green seaweed."

She reaches down into the bag once more, pulls out a couple of pink curlers and snaps them into her silvery hair while she talks.

"Little granddaughter climbed up onto the stool I painstakingly tracked down.  I hunted for days on end to get that perfect seat from a Facebook customer.  I then drove all the way to "Southfork Ranch" (and she makes the quote marks with her fingers) to hand over $20 and haul it home."

She reaches down into that Target-trendy bag and pulls out a pair of earrings and clips them on.

"The coloring's done and she wanted a way to save it.  So I asked her if she'd like a page protector.  "Yes," she nodded her little head of long blonde hair."

Then she said "But I want one of those things Grandpa John has upstairs."  

"You mean an envelope?"  

"Yes!"

The lady on stage reaches into her two-tone felt bag and pulls out a a pair of glasses to set on her nose.  

"About this time her daddy came to take her home, but she's not done, they conferred over the envelope first.  "GrammyPam, do you have an ink pen?"  which I provided during this head-tilting confab.  She asked how to spell something and daddy helped her address the envelope.  It has a large heart in the center all filled in with bright colors.  I'm feeling all gooey and am melting inside."

"Granddaughter has had my rapt attention all this time, you know."

She reaches into the open-mouthed bag on the floor to pull out one more thing.  She unfolds the stick, gives it a flick, and it snaps securely into place.  It's a cane.

She looks across the faces of those of us listening to her little story.  "My little scamp of a granddaughter said, "I love her the best!" and the lady puts her free hand over her heart, giving us tender sweet eyes.

The lady in red, now turned grandma, ticks them off, using her fingers "My house, my paper, my crayons, my computer, my stool, my page protector, my envelope, my ink pen, and my undivided attention."  Pointing her butt backwards, hand on hip, she leans on her cane and says, "This little darling minx of mine addressed that envelope with the help of my son!, and I didn't chide her, no, I squinted my eyes at her enabler instead, because in childish scrawl across that envelope it didn't say "GrammyPam", it said that other grandmother's name, 

"I "heart" Ma-Maw!"