and the blue even slowly falls about the garden trees and walls

At 8:30am today, I traveled the 2 miles down the road to my grandparents house. At 3:30pm, I made the return trip. Time = 7 hours.

A lovely day.

Working at the nursing home this summer, I've come to a passionate appreciation for age. In every one of its ugly, difficult, and deeply depressing forms, it is beautiful. For the people who appear to have been harden by age, you have to hold their hands the most often. What made them so bitter towards life? If only we knew, it would break our hearts.

For others, such as my grandmother, life gets more and more beautiful every day. She has endured enough life to make her angry. But she refuses to accept this. I need my hand held by these people the most often. It makes me better. It makes my heart muscles stronger. She teaches me how to love. Through age, she knows, better than anyone in the world, how to love.

We brought flowers to the cemetery today. She walked me over to a couple of fresh graves--two brothers from my hometown. Even though separate diseases claimed their too-young bodies, they died just 20 days apart at ages 79 and 82. It's funny how that happens. Lovely, in a way. Like, after a certain age it becomes impossible to recover from pain. Especially a pain as unimaginable as losing your lifelong best friend. That, or there is a God up there who doesn't believe in lifelong.

"I'm surprised they went so young," Grandma looks down, "Well I guess we can't live forever."