My cousins’ Grandma Elsie died on Monday, March 15. I give you the date for only one reason…it has been approximately two months since her death and I have received 17 reminders that she looks down on me from heaven—at least twice a week.
Grandma Elsie was born on October 23, 1905. She lived to be 104 years and five months. I’ve written about Grandma Elsie and her garden in the past. She loved to plant flowers and always had a beautiful vegetable garden.
At one time my young sons thought that her garden held the magic spell of youth as they overheard us talking one day and we said “Grandma’s garden keeps her young.”
She lived alone in her house after her husband Abner died in 1960. If you do the math you realize she was widowed 17 years longer
than she was actually married. She begrudgingly moved to a nursing home when she was 103. Until then my cousin would catch her up on the ladder painting her window trim! She didn’t want to bother anybody or ask for help.
I had never heard of dimes dropping from heaven until the day of Grandma’s funeral. My sweet cousin was sweeping her kitchen floor, tidying up the house to put off her grief, when she turned around to find a brand new dime in the middle of the floor she had just cleaned. She held it up and said this is from Grandma.
I must admit I was a bit skeptical but it was her first smile of the day so I played along.
Well. Grandma showed me, because later, as I was getting out of the car there was a dime on the ground right next to my foot. I picked it up and didn’t say a word.
Two days later I found a dime on the Holiday gas station sidewalk. Okay, Okay, this all might have been a coincidence but a dime in my shoe?
I tell you no lie; there was a dime in my shoe just a week later.
Now they show up everywhere. In my pockets, under my desk, outside in the grass, at the park…. my friend, I am now a true believer. I swear to goodness, dear Grandma Elsie is dropping dimes from heaven!
Now I am not sure why it is dimes that we find. My first thought is that it is because grandma was a centenarian and if you live more than 100 years you are given dimes to drop instead of mere pennies. Now I think it might be that a dime is a sign of love tenfold.
Think about it: if Grandma dropped a dime a week on each and every one of her 23 grandchildren, 48 great-grandchildren, and 18 great-greatgrandchildren that would be 4,628 dimes in this next year alone. We could plant a city park full of flowers! Whatever the reason, I am now saving these precious dimes in a jar and when I have enough I will plant a perennial flower in my garden in her memory. After all I might just have another 58 years to live and I will need my garden to keep me young.
My husband Mike can paint the trim on the house though; he’ll only be 101.
Heaven is under our feet as
well as over our heads.
Henry David Thoreau
Tastes Like Home columnist Sandy (Anderson) Holthaus lives on an alpaca farm in
South Haven, MN with her husband, Michael, and their children Zoe, Jack and Ben. Her
heart remains on the North Shore where she grew up with her parents, Art and LaVonne
Anderson of Schroeder. She enjoys writing about her childhood and mixes memories with
delicious helpings of home-style recipes.
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