mrs-roboto's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Skid-a-ma rinky-dinky-dink, Skid-a-ma rinky-doo I woke up this morning thinking about my grandmother . If you've been reading me for a bit, you know that she passed away last November and that I was completely devastated. You see, my grandmother had essentially raised from me from infancy as my mother and father worked full time jobs. She saw me take my first steps and mouth my first words. She saw me off on my first day of school, making sure my hair was neatly braided and my uniform pressed and ironed. She prepared my lunches (a baloney sandwich every day for thirteen years with a glass of whole milk). She helped me with my homework and administered medicine when I was ill. She changed my diapers and taught me how to tie my shoelaces. I could go on and on but the point I'm trying to make is my grandmother was no ordinary weekends and holidays grandmother. She was present every day for all the major and not so major moments in my childhood. There was a story my grandmother would tell me whenever I returned back home from college. She start out by saying how I was the most beautiful baby she's ever laid eyes on. You see, I was different from her own children who were very dark in appearance (inheriting all their physical traits from my Italian grandfather) and fairly slim. In fact, I was a chubby, auburn haired baby with big blue eyes. I had fleshy little hands that dimpled at the knuckles, "doll hands" she called them. I had a Buddha belly that peaked out from underneath my sun dresses and I loved to smile my big toothless grin. My grandmother would proudly roll me around the block in my stroller showing me off to each and every neighbor. "Your daughter is the most beautiful baby I've ever seen," they'd say. I was never sure if she was prouder of being mistaken for a woman youthful enough to have an infant or for being the grandmother of an baby who was so easily distinguished as adorable. It been seven months and not a day passes that I don't almost pick up the phone and dial her number because I want so desperately to hear her voice. A few days before Mother's Day I wandered into her favorite chocolate store and purchased two boxes of sweets as I had been doing for the last couple of years, one for my mom and one for her. I was at the register before I realized what I had done. On her birthday, which was earlier this month, I sat in yard and sang ""Skid-a-ma rinky-dinky-dink, skid-a-ma rinky-doo, I love you... Skid-a-ma rinky-dinky-dink, skid-a-ma rinky-doo, I love you... I love you in the morning, and in the afternoon, I love you in the evening and underneath the moon! Skid-a-ma rinky-dinky-dink, skid-a-ma rinky-doo, I looooove you," to the sky. Somewhere in my parents house I have an audio recording of the two of us serenading each other with that tune. I am barely three and my grandmother coaxes me through the parts I forget. We sang that song to each the last time I saw her too. 2:37 p.m. - 2004-06-22 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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