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Showing posts from January, 2026

Tea Party Blues and Grass-Stained Ballet Shoes

It’s my day to play with the grandchildren while their daddy works at the Lighthouse Mission and their mommy runs errands, then teaches a class on ministry to the unhoused. Both have arrived home for a quick lunch. Bridget, my daughter-in-law, has brought Aspen, my four-year-old granddaughter, home from a ballet lesson. Aspen looks entirely too grown up in her pink tutu. Her blonde hair in a ponytail that reaches her shoulder blades swings back and forth as she walks. Aspen wants peanut butter and jelly for lunch. She gives me step-by-step instructions: “First, you spread the peanut butter on one side of the bread, Memaw. Then you put the jelly on the other and smush it together.” She demonstrates. I smush. Then I put the sandwich on a plate and cut it diagonally in half at her command. She peels the two pieces of bread apart, licks off the peanut butter and jelly, and leaves the bread. Griffin, my youngest grandson, is napping. He won’t even know he missed his parents’ brief visit hom...