Sitting together brought them joy. They weren't the typical grandma and grandson, they truly were best friends. Their times spent together were fantastic ones, in both of their memories. One day in particular they had gone to the cemetery to decorate a grave.
"Aunt Tracy,” the boy shook his head, "it really was all those years ago."
"Yes," the grandmother stared for a moment at the name etched before them in granite: Tracy Halsey. This was a different name from what she had been born with, and her mother, the woman staring at her grave, let it sink in through her faded hazel eyes.
To the grandson these were sad times; his aunt had passed away and he worried as he looked towards the pallor of his grandmother. And his mother? His other aunts and uncles? What would happen to them? The boy shook the disgust of the thought away.
"Let's decorate," the grandmother broke his thoughts; bringing from the car a few flowers in hangers and she set them gently alongside the grave. She paused again: it really was her daughter’s grave. Her thoughts were in a time where the daughter thrived, made crafts, decorated for Christmas, laughed like a child, and did all of the things a daughter would do. Her eyes gleamed in realizing these could only be memories now.
"Here," her grandson hugged her and took the flowers from her hand, turning her to face the hill that rolled gently next to the fence. The summer sun lit the blades of grass to bright hues of green flame. The grandmother smiled. She let her thoughts follow instead the rolling fenceline and surrounding colors. The grandson watched her slouched posture that curved with her age, her gray hair, and the lines of her smile. Her faded eyes seemed out of place with the green, lively meadow around her. But to the grandson, they were one in the same. She was his grandmother and he loved her, just as much as the surrounding life itself.
The flowers made the grave of someone lively; the memory is what mattered. They were home now.
“How’d it go? Did you guys plant flowers?” the mother stirred spaghetti in a pan over the stove, the steam rolling back in somersaults. The grandmother and grandson had left the cemetery and had just arrived home-- the grandmother, mother, and grandson all lived together: the grandmother being the mother's mother and the son the mother's son. They all got along well. The mother always cooked everyone dinner, and the family together was all very nearly, closely bonded as more than family, but a group of lifetime friends.
The grandmother shuffled across the kitchen to the microwave, and after selecting with weary concentration a mug from the cupboard and filling it with the ice cold tap water that came from a well, she punched the time in the microwave no more, no less than usual: two minutes. The microwave pulled so much from the house that the lights dimmed and a steady whurr filled the kitchen; a sleepy reminder that the house too was aging.
The grandmother took the hot cup of water from the microwave and, with a trembling hand, rested the cup on the counter. She tore the paper from the tea bag, taking the bag by its string. It floated gently on top of the water for a time until it saturated and sank to the bottom of the cup, staining its cloudy depths forevermore, as time had stained the grandmother. Her feelings were bold, much like the strength of the tea that she drank. It wasn’t exactly a sad sight, but all the same it was. It was one of those moments that you’d think about for a long time afterward.
There really weren’t many things in this life that counted for each the grandson and the grandmother but their time spent together.
Later that day, before bed, the grandson passed by his grandmother’s room.
“Do you need anything, grandma?” He peered in the doorway.
“Oh, I’m alright, thank you!” her voice was genuine, sweet, and caring as always.
“Are you sure?” the grandson was willing to look past his grandmother’s worries about becoming a burden.
“Oh, I guess you’re right, I do want something. Could you make me a tea please?”
“Sure, grandma. Two minutes?”
“You know it,” she smiled a sweet smile that only she could do. No one else in the world had that smile.
The grandson stood again in front of the microwave. Whurrrrr. The lights dimmed. The kitchen was colder than usual, he could barely feel his toes despite his socks. He remembered his grandmother’s warning through the years to always wear slippers in the kitchen, but he always laughed and said that he was fine. Slippers were too much work to put on and take off.
He took the packet between his fingers and gently tore the paper away. The rich smell filled the air, the tea bag sat on the hot water, light and twirling as does a feather. The clouds shortly after began swirling through the clear liquid, tinting it a light green, spinning through time, filling the cup with experience and emotion.
The grandson carefully carried the cup back to his grandmother’s room, his cold feet tingling from the cold of the floor.
“Grandma?” the grandson said. She had fallen asleep, but the grandson’s voice startled her awake.
“Oh, thank you,” she smiled, not really embarrassed to have been woken up because at her age it had become a normal occurrence. She sipped the tea right away and set it aside onto a heating coaster on the night stand. The grandson kept that image forever in his mind, because it was there that they were happy, content, and in the universe quietly hidden from time in the presence of a good cup of tea and each other’s company.