By Kelsi Peace, Features Editor

Thoughtful Ramblings

She is barely over five feet tall now, and osteoporosis has claimed her body, stooping her shoulders and brittling her already fragile bones. When my great-grandmother walked into my parents’ house on Christmas Eve, I was astounded by how much the past few years have aged her.

The great-grandmother I remember would sit for hours by the pool at her condo, watching my younger brother and I entertaining ourselves by jumping in repeatedly. After swimming, we would go inside for dinner. My mom and great-grandparents would laugh and talk.

She’s is in her nineties now, and still regularly dies her hair a dark auburn. On her left wrist, my great-grandmother wears a thick pearl bracelet every day. The bracelet hides her wrist bone, which healed skewed after a bad break many years ago. She unfailingly presents me with a check and a card for Christmas and my birthday; my grandmother writes them now because her mother can’t see to read or write.

While no one else will observe her white hair, crooked wrist or inability to see, they all exist nonetheless. But there is still more to this woman.

She spent four days with us at Christmas and passed most of them sitting quietly on the couch. She can’t read, do crossword puzzles or watch TV. So she listens. She listened to a tiresome political debate among a family that represents many political perspectives. She listened to us while we played Mad Gab.

I think I only held a conversation with my great-grandmother once during her stay. One afternoon, I sprawled on the couch to read Wicked; she sat on the other end and looked out the window. When she asked what I was reading, I explained that I had seen the Broadway show in Chicago earlier this year, and her face lit up. She launched into a lengthy explanation of the plays she and my great-grandfather had attended on a trip to New York, describing and critiquing the music, costumes and acting.

The content of our conversation was not as important as the reminder it sent me: she is a woman who has lived a life rich with experience and love, a life that has witnessed countless adventures, tragedies and successes. Yet at the end of it all, there she sat, listening.

Out of all my memories of my great-grandmother, her gracious hostessing, her attention to detail and her sacrificing spirit, I am most moved by the memory of her silence. I hope someday to practice what my great-grandmother does so easily: listening. The kind of listening that makes the speaker feel as if he or she is all-important. The kind of listening that isn’t seeking an opportunity to dominate the conversation.

She may appear to be a fragile, elderly woman. But I know there is so much more to my great-grandmother-she is in fact, so strong, that she is able to just listen.