My cousin’s Grandma, Elsie, died on Monday, March 15, 2009. (I give you the date for only one reason… since her death I have received many reminders that she looks down on me and my sister cousin from heaven at least twice a week.)
Born on October 23rd, 1905, she lived to be 104 years and five months. Grandma Elsie had a beautiful garden. She loved to plant flowers and always had a bountiful 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 as a widow for almost 50 years after her husband Abner died in 1960. 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 lies; 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-great-grandchildren 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 50 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 98!
“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
Taste of Home columnist Sandy (Anderson) Holthaus lives on a 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. You can email her your thoughts and messages at sandyholthaus1010@gmail.com. She would love to hear from you.
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