Trees and Squirrels

As I get ready for the Mother's Day show... and... as the 40th day passes from my grandmother's death... I stop to realize that life is good, even with its losses. Life is my everyday and everyday is my life... It takes its courses, downfalls, turns, and stops, but that's life... my life... my good life...

Today, I stop to realize that the world around me offers everything and anything. I can be what I want, do what I want, and experience all that I want. Due to that type of freedom, life brings us certain setbacks to help us realize what we actually, not just want, but need.

If you've been reading for the past year, then, you probably know me really well. If you've just joined us, I'd like to go back to a past post I wrote on April 21, 2010. It was "Day 80" of my 365 Everday Modest project. On day 80, I visited my grandmother and I wrote about how, even though she has Alzheimer's, she remembers she loves me... She is the grandmother that recently passed away and I thought I'd go back to it to explain how my life has evolved in the past year. I wrote about a squirrel in Day 80 and I bring that up because I had an encounter with a squirrel the other day. I was sitting at the park, under a tree, and a squirrel came towards me and sat down next to me, less than a foot away. I tried not to move so that I wouldn't scare it away and watched it look up at me. Then, I said, "Hi Tati," which means grandma, and smiled at it.

We buried her under a tree and, now, every time I sit under a tree and see a squirrel, it takes me back to "Day 80," and, "Day 80" is where I want to keep her in my memory. Here is a bit of that day:

"Yesterday, I went by to see her and she was outside feeding a squirrel. I know, how weird... right? Ya, it was pretty weird, but amazing. The squirrel was sitting right at her feet as she handed it a big piece of bread. The squirrel grabbed the bread, nibbled at it, then, dropped it and stood on his back feet, looked up at my grandma, and wiggled his fuzzy tail. I watched this happening from the top of the stairs and couldn't help but laugh at the ugly thing who looked like a rat due to the rain and wet puddles around. So she looked down at it and said, (in Armenian) "That's it, no more, you're not getting sweets today!" The squirrel still looking up at her, sat down and waited. Then my grandma said to me, "Why aren't you coming up? Are you scared of it? I'm just feeding this 'rat'... come on, come in..." So, I slowly walked towards the door of the house, and, surprisingly enough, it didn't run away. I said, "No, I'm not scared of the rat grandma, but it'll run if I come towards it." She replied, "No, don't worry, come in," as she picked the bread back up, tore it to pieces, threw some out to the birds, and gave the squirrel a smaller piece. Then, I watched as the squirrel grabbed the smaller piece of bread, looked back at my grandma, reassuring itself that it wasn't going to get anything sweet today, then, ran down the stairs...

It was so extraordinary and funny to watch all this happen...

As I walked inside her home, still thinking about what had happened, I took off my shoes, and sat down comfortably on the couch. I was there for about an hour and a half, and throughout that period, she asked me if I wanted tea about 22 times, asked what day it was, about 6 times, and told me to eat the apples she had cut about 14 times...

As she asked me the 4th time about what day it was, I just looked at her with a dumbed look on my face...she looked back at me, grinned and said, "What should I do, I forget..." while shrugging her shoulders.

With all the things she forgets during her day, she always recognizes my voice over the phone, remembers my fiance's name, gets extremely excited when I show up at her door, and remembers that she loves me...

As we were sitting there, there was a music video on t.v. of a woman singing about her mom and why she had to grow old... my grandma watched it and after it was over said, "It's not in her hands, if it was, she wouldn't have..."'

As for my life now, a year later, it's good... Life is better because, now, I have a special relationship with trees and squirrels.