Today was full of blessings and opportunities for acts of service and love.  I had the opportunity to make scones for my grandparents, and my grandma asked me to cut her hair which gave me the privilege of making her feel better and more put together, and gave me the opportunity to offer gentle, loving touch, and Sarah went food shopping with my mom, which was the opportunity to offer a bit of brightness and cheer in the midst of a pretty sad, hard time.  And I had the opportunity to write to Grandpa a little about our trip to Roadside America and Knoebel's Amusement Park and the picnic we had, last month, and to show him all the postcards I got while we were there.

23 years ago, last month, Grandpa taught me to drive, in return for mowing their lawn.  Every Saturday I would walk around the corner to spend a couple hours mowing the lawn, using the edger, using the weed whacker on the spaces between the rose bushes...  After each section of the yard was done, Grandma and Grandpa would encourage me to take a break to sit in the shade and have a glass of iced tea.  To sit and enjoy the breeze and the birds and maybe eat a few mulberries.  And then a few afternoons a week, Grandpa and I would drive over to the factory section of Maspeth and I would drive in circles for an hour -- left turn, right turn, parallel park; stop light, stop sign, parallel park; K-turn, merge, parallel park...  And any time anyone behind me got cranky and beeped at me, he encouraged me to shrug and say "ah, blow it out  your ear!"   So many important lessons, that summer.