Grandma's Calendar | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Grandma's Calendar | Previous Challenge Entry
By Pamela Hill
10/26/16
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The funeral was over, family and friends had left for their hometowns. Beth sat alone in Grandma’s living room. She had never sat in this chair before. It was her Grandma’s chair and she’d never seen anyone but Grandma sit here.

Beth looked around the room, she was trying to see everything through her Grandma’s eyes. She wanted her to be there, to tell her what she wanted done with all of the things left behind. Then the sensation that was unwelcome, but becoming more familiar, washed over her again—Grief. Grandma was gone. And now everything, including this house, belonged to her.

Suddenly, an item across the room caught her attention and brought an instant smile to her face. Grandma’s calendar. She walked over and gently unfastened it from the wall.

Back in Grandma’s chair, Beth hugged the calendar close as fond memories washed over her. Grandma always got a new calendar as soon as the coming year’s stock hit the market. She remembered the first time, as a young girl, she shopped for a new calendar with her Grandma. Beth picked out one with the cutest kittens and another with beautiful horses, but Grandma told her, “No Dear, it has to be one with bigger boxes. Remember, the whole year has to fit onto it. You pick one for yourself honey, and I’ll find my perfect calendar for next year.” Grandma didn’t seem at all concerned with whether it had pictures of the ocean, sunsets, lighthouses or donkeys. As long as the boxes were big enough. When they got back to Grandma’s house, she had taken the calendar off her wall and began filling in the boxes on her new calendar with items from the old.

As she got older, Beth learned to value Grandma’s calendars. If she forgot how old a niece or nephew was, or the date of a cousin’s birthday, Grandma always knew. Was it June or July that Jim and Julie had visited from Alaska? Or how many years have Bob and Marie been married? Grandma always knew.

Beth started turning the pages and reading ‘the boxes’. Every birthday and anniversary, including the year, was written very small at the top of the box for that date. The bottom of each box recorded anything noteworthy that happened that day. Every new birth, including weight, length, and name of the child and parents was written. Also noted was every visit by distant family or friends, weddings, graduations, new jobs started or any other memorable event happening in the life of those Grandma loved. Occasionally one of the small names at the top was crossed off. Beth recognized them as people that had passed away this year.

When she got to February, she smiled seeing the red heart stuck on Feb 14th. Grandma had written; ‘Bradley asked, Beth said Yes!’ She was so grateful Grandma had been here for their wedding in August. It was the last time the whole family had been together.

Later that week, when Beth began to empty closets, she found two large file boxes. They were pushed to the very back of the closet in the extra room. When she opened the first box, what she saw caused her to sink to the floor. Calendars. In order by year, they went from last year all the way back to 1975. In the bottom box, she found 1974, and a calendar for every year back to 1931! Her Grandma was 8 years old when she started keeping calendars, and there was one for every year of her life! Tears poured down her cheeks as she read the scrawls of a child, written in 1931.

She read for hours and learned about Grandma’s life as a girl. She laughed, cried, and got angry at some of the things that had happened to her precious Grandma. When her legs started getting cramped, from sitting on the floor, she got up to stretch. As she walked back to the living room tears flowed freely. Her Grandma had left her such an amazing gift to discover.

Back in Grandma’s chair, she picked up the current Calendar. The last entry was made on November 26th; ‘First snowfall’. On November 27th Beth wrote; ‘Elizabeth Ann Logan died’. She filled in the details leading up to the funeral and today. Next, she found a piece of paper and started a shopping list:
File box
Calendar

Fiction

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