New Podcast Episode: How Quarantine is Helping Me Reconnect with My Grandma

We're all learning how to adapt to these crazy times. I never would have expected that lessons I learned from my grandma many years ago would shape the way I react and help me work my way through it. How have you been coping and who influenced your choices?

As you'll hear in my latest podcast at anchor.fm/adropinthecloud, there were many times where I didn't always understand my grandma and her way of life. It wasn't until her passing where I gained more appreciation for our shared history and how I might one day take on her characteristics. I reference a poem that I wrote many years ago and will include it at the end of this post. It wasn't until these quarantine times where the progression I made in the poem truly came full circle.

And for those wondering, the thread in the picture is actually one of  her boxes.

Give the podcast a listen and then come back and read this poem:

Inside the Boxes

Another Sunday afternoon around the table

Plates of homemade cookies, cups of tea

We’d see the clock and say, “My, how it’s getting late”

I think it’s time we head out on our way

But she’d open up the closet where she kept everything she owned

Neatly packed in boxes piled high

There’s some things we had to see

She called it some emergency

But we knew she couldn’t say goodbye

So, down came the boxes from the shelf 

Filled with little pieces of herself
She’d say, “Here’s when I was younger, just a child, you know.”
“Here’s when I grew older, had some children of my own.”
“Here I was a baby, and here I was a wife”
We’d take a look inside the box and take a look inside her life

Another Sunday afternoon around the table

Packages of cookies, bottled drinks

We’re spinning memories of all she used to be
We never thought we’d have to say such things

But we opened up the closet where we kept everything she owned

Neatly packed in boxes piled high

There’s some things we had to do

We had to get them sorted through

“Cause we knew it’s time to say goodbye

So, down came the boxes from the shelf

Filled with little pieces of ourselves

‘Cause that one when she was younger

Had no thoughts of what was near

That she would soon grow older breathing life to all us here

Everything she treasured from a child to a wife

We’ll take a look inside the box and take a look inside our life

Oh, I never liked those boxes very much back then

From the hours spent reliving time and time again

And those photographs she cut always made me cry
But today I think it’s time, today I think I’m gonna try

So, down come the boxes from the shelf

Filled with little pieces of myself

‘Cause that one when she was younger looks a bit like me

And that one when she grew older is how I someday just might be

History unravels showing more than meets the eye

I’ll take a look inside the box and take a look inside my life