SantaFe.com

The sidewalk at the Carriage Hill Nursing Home in Maryland was lined with yellow and purple pansies, flowers my grandmother always had around her home since I was a little girl. Up on the second floor, my grandmother didn’t look like she always had. She was 99 and dying.

"Hello, Grandma! It’s Claudette," I announced by her bed, where she lay awake but with eyes closed.

"Ah, Claudette," she said in a weak voice, opening eyes to look at me briefly and smile. "I love Claudette."

I rested my hand on hers and sat by the bed. Her aide, Beverly, filled me in on recent changes in my grandmother’s...

Tuesday, June 3, 2008
by Claudette Sutton • Tumbleweeds

I was cranky all day on Super Bowl Sunday. You can safely assume this had nothing to do with who was or wasn’t in the game. I’m so much not a football fan that I had to ask my husband the day before which teams were playing.

“Wait, let me guess,” I said. “The New England Patriots and the Green Bay Packers.”

“I’m sorry, that’s wrong,” Charles said in an encouraging, first-grade teacher tone. “But I’m going to give you a C+ for effort.”

A C+ for 50 percent correct? No way! I thought I deserved extra credit for the right first letter (G for Giants/G for Green Bay). Charles cut me no slack.

Thursday, May 15, 2008
by Claudette Sutton • Tumbleweeds