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If I could go anywhere, I’d like to go back to Cannon Falls, Minnesota, to my Grandma’s house beside the tall white pines she planted. It would be 1992, just before she died. I would want to talk to her, Grandma to Grandma, something that never happened. In those days, in my culture, grandparents didn’t talk to children. We knew that and didn’t question it. So I thought I had little in common with her. But now I’m a grandmother too, and I understand how she did communicate with me, over and over, with the things she loved. I would tell her that I remember the day she helped me with my knitting. I was going so slow, and in just a few minutes she showed me how to knit European style, fast and efficiently. I would recall to her how after every visit to her house she would find an old newspaper, dip it in water, and expect me to choose which flowers to pick from her garden to send home with me. I would give her an extra thank you for the quilts she made for my bed, the quilts she made for my babies, the hats and mittens she knit for all of us. I found an old picture the other day of all 9 of her grandchildren dressed in matching play-clothes that she had sewed for us. And I remember, with regret, that I didn’t thank her enough for the incredible cocoa brown sweater she knit for me, using the seed stitch (popcorn stitch), when I was in 5th grade. My sister’s was bright yellow, which I wanted (and eventually inherited from her). I remembered that sweater because I have just now finished making one with that same cocoa brown in it, seed stitch and all, and that old sweater came rushing to mind. I would like to sit with her in her screened in porch and say, “Thank you, Grandma, for every stitch, spending your time thinking of me. I love that color now. I know you must have loved it then.” Finally, I would tell her that one of the best surprises in my life was when she sent me homemade cookies at college. This grandmother who I never talked to, the one who was tall and severe and aloof, knew what all grandmothers know, that cookies are for those you love. And when I bake them with my granddaughter, Grandma is watching over my shoulder. Cannon Falls is about 1000 miles from here, and I probably will head up to Minnesota when this virus is past. I will try to find my way home via a thousand images and scents and paths to that vanished Minnesota that I love. --Cynthia
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January 2022
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