There are many fond moments of times spent with Grandma Win that weave through my memory. I will share some of them here, alighting on one and then the next, much in the same way that warm thoughts of her alight upon my consciousness in my day-to-day life.

 

Grandma and I have a shared love of poetry. One time, when I visited her home on Belmont, she shared with me some lovely poems she had written about particular flowering plants she was keeping an eye on that spring. As I remember it, one of the poems ended with a line about how a new bloom was “suddenly there!” There was a feeling of how beautifully and joyfully startling the emergence of a blossom can be, and she captured with such loving, tender, and jubilant witness these miracles of nature’s comings and goings.

 

On an earlier visit to her home on Montrose, we talked about opera and listened to Renee Fleming singing Schubert. I felt like I was home, listening to this gorgeous music and listening to Grandma talk about her own experiences with singing classical music.

 

I loved how, when she was still at the Montrose apartment, I visited Grandma another time and we ordered up from the Royal Thai restaurant on the first floor of her building. The food was delicious! She told me, in her usual thoughtful and richly detailed manner, about the restaurant owners, how they had nurtured their business and how it had come to be a thriving installment there on Montrose. She shared with me an exchange she’d had with the shop owners in which they had explained that the picture of the uniformed man they had up in their shop was their Thai king, something I didn’t know about at the time. I still think of Grandma and Royal Thai now every time I go to a Thai restaurant that has photographs of their monarchs on display.

 

Playing Scrabble with Grandma Win was a joy, an exercise in keeping the mind lively and a chance to enjoy Grandma’s vast intelligence and wit. She would fill every corner of the board with vast arrays of words. I remember the special dictionary of two-letter words she kept on hand for Scrabble games, and remember being delighted that there were so many great words that could be availed upon for help in a tight spot on the board. Grandma was always the consummate Scrabble player, passionate about the game and her love of words.

 

And I always loved seeing Grandma in her element as theatre director, doing such awesome work with her theatre group. I loved seeing her shine on stage and the way she was a radiant sun of heartfulness and quicksilver intelligence for the actors she worked with.

 

Most of all, my memories of Grandma are of her amazing heart and warm love, of her supportiveness and keen intellect, and of how, through her eyes, the beauty of nature and the seasons is an unspooling skein of delight.

 

Thank you, Grandma Win, for your love and sweetness and for so magnificently being you!

[Used with Permission.]