Today I remembered the day my Granny Jane showed off for me. I was twenty-five, a mostly-grown woman, and she was seventy-two, still recovering from hip and knee surgery, and fighting sleep apnea, adult onset diabetes, and other ailments that she wouldn’t complain about. On this particular day, we were chatting about my job, her bridge group, and our usual niceties. She was hunched, leaning over the sink, her walker firmly in front of her, cutting tomatoes onto a warped, worn blue plate. As the conversation lulled, she turned around and said, “Do you want to see me show off?” Pride was glittering in her blue eyes. 

         Smiling, I said, “Yes,” unsure what she meant. Then, I held my breath as she turned, and shuffled slightly forward, struggling to slide her heavy, swollen ankles on cracked, brittle feet from the sink to the table, thirty-six inches away. She pumped her arms and as she neared me, her breath came in short gasps. Reaching the table, her palms gripped the table edge, and her fingers shook. She beamed, knowing that she had made it without her walker. I smiled, clapped, and hugged her. Her glee weakening, she reached for the walker, and I placed the metal bars back in front of her.  Sadness washed over me as I realized how precious and fleeting these moments were. 

          As I left that day, my mind shuffled through many memories with my grandmother and settled on another scene. I don’t remember it myself, but I have memorized it from an old photograph. The picture shows my mom in her twenties on one side and my grandmother in her forties on the other, but neither of them is looking at the camera. They are both focused on a one-year-old me, in the center of the photograph, toddling some of my first steps to Granny Jane. I wonder if the conversation was much the same.  “Want to see her show off, Mom?” my twenty-something Mom said as she set me down on unsteady legs. My blue eyes sparkled, seeing my granny’s outstretched arms. I tottered across the floor, my legs shaking, my toes gripping the floor, and I reached out my arms to her. My granny is smiling broadly in the picture. I can imagine her clapping and hugging me before putting me back in my own walker.

          I am humbled again by the cycle, the circle that continues before and after us. I have been so blessed to see my own children toddle to her, their great-grandmother, their GiGi. I wonder how soon, too soon, I will see my children’s children show off for me. Those memories and the ones to come, inspire me to awaken to enjoy the minutes and the moments that I am blessed with today. They remind me that every small step is worth showing off.