The Road That Was Taken

One day five years ago Granny came home from work and found a letter in her mailbox from her friend Robert Crawford. Now, Granny and Robert had been friends since they were in high school, for all of 48 years, which is a good long time. Way back then, Robert and Bob Dorn and Jack Hairston and Michael Wells and Jane Thornberg and Granny hung out together and called themselves the Elves, Gnomes, Leprechauns, and Little Men's Chowder & Marching Society. So, Granny is always excited to get a letter from him. But today, when Granny read his letter, he said that his son David had died. Granny felt so sad. Granny remembered when David was born, just two years before Uncle Richard was born. David was the first baby born to anyone in the Elves, Gnomes, Leprechauns, and Little Men's Chowder & Marching Society, and Granny had always felt like he was their baby.

Granny wrote an e-mail to Michael, who is now Maya's Gramps, to tell him about it and she wrote a letter to Robert telling him how sorry she was. Then Granny realized that she had to write to Jane as well, because Jane was David's mother. And Granny hadn't seen or heard from Jane since Jane and Robert got their divorce and that was 38 years ago, Granny remembers because it was right after Uncle Richard was born.

Well, Granny wrote a letter to Jane and she was very sad about David all over again. But then, Granny realized that she was sad about something else as well, and what that other thing was, she was sad that it had been so long since she had seen or talked to Jane. That Granny really missed Jane. And she missed her even more when the letter came back and Granny realized that she didn't know where Jane was.

And then Granny got to thinking about all the moving she had done in her life, and all of the friends that she had lost touch with, and it seemed to her that her past was like a landscape littered with lost friends. Little girls that she had known when she was a little girl, like Lupe and Maria, Jean and Rita Pine, Sandy Pettichord, Roberta and Bernadette, and Esther. Teenaged girls that she had known when she was a teenaged girl, like Ruth, Sarah, and Jenny, Jane, and Katy Savage. Young women that she had known when she was a young woman, like Gail Jennings, Nanette, Julie Anne, and Val, Kit Schneider, Rita, Nicola, and Leanne. Full grown women that she had known when she was a full grown woman, like Jean Van Whye and Gloria Desroucher and Alison Hudson and Carol Pevin and Zenia Tata. And Granny really missed them all. Granny thought about the friends she still has from her earlier days, and they are few. Like Linda Lapsley and Linda McKinney. And even they don't live in Juneau near Granny. Granny wished that she could have always lived in one town and always had the same friends and know where they all are and see them all the time.

(Since that day, five years ago, Julie has found Kate for Granny and Michael has found Jane for Granny, and now Granny sees them both when she goes to California and e-mails them and talks to them on the phone. She still doesn't know where her other friends are, and sometimes she still misses them. Sometimes she envies people who stay in one place and have the same friends always.)

And Granny realized that when you choose to wear your blue shirt, your closet is full of shirts you aren't wearing, and when you choose to eat sourdough bread and Limburger cheese the kitchen is full of food you aren't eating, and when you choose to move to a new place, the world is full of places and people you have left behind. And Granny realized that when you are born under a wandering star, sometimes you long for roots.