The Buzz of Miche Bee

No pleasure philosophy, no sensuality, no place nor power, no material success can for a moment give such inner satisfaction as the sense of living for good purposes, for maintenance of integrity, for the preservation of self-approval.
- Minot Simons

Someone I am quite fond of reminded me of this a couple of years ago when I was on the road to forgetting, and I am grateful often for that reminder.

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A few years ago, before Doug and I were married, I dreamt that I was dreaming, and in the dream, my grandmother came and sat next to me on the bed. She looked great, the way she looked before cancer ravaged her body. I told her so, and I asked her if that was what it was like in heaven, that you went back to the time in life you were happiest. And I told her how much I missed her, and I cried, so hard. Through my tears I asked her if she missed me, and she said, “No my dear, I'm always right here with you.”

There isn't anyone I miss more than I miss her, and I will until the day I die. Because of her, I am the woman I am today, because she believed in me, and she loved me completely, unquestioningly.

I miss her laugh, and her sense of humor; I miss getting up in the morning, creeping downstairs, crawling into bed with her, and begging her to tell me some juicy family gossip for the hundredth time. I miss hearing the scuffle of her moccasins on the kitchen floor as she fixed breakfast and made my lunch for school. I miss washing the dishes with her after dinner, and the things she would teach me whenever we had that precious uninterrupted time to talk. I miss how she said, “Ha-WHY-ya,” instead of “Hawaii” even though at the time it drove me crazy. And I miss how when my grandfather would get off on a rant about something at the dinner table, she would quietly, her voice almost a whisper, say, “Frank, please don't swear.” And his voice would lower and he would stop swearing, but continue on with his story, because she didn’t interrupt him, her message was almost subliminal. That was her way--a slow, quiet, unassuming approach to life--filled with a calm, wise way of looking about her, and being at peace with the world.

Mostly I miss sitting on the floor next to her chair and having her reach over and stroke my hair, and tell me how much she loved me.

I long to have that dream again, to have just a few minutes more to talk to her--just a few minutes more.