Books for Fran's grand-baby girl...

I mailed some Halloween books and a little stuffed black cat up to my friend Fran's granddaughter last week.  That little girl has loved all the books I've been sending her, and for the past year or so, she has learned to recognize her name on the packages. She will see the wrapped package in the pile of mail and tell her parents "Aunt Larrie sent me this!"  Fran's son has told me that I'm the only one who mails packages to little E, but still, that little girl does know how to read and spell her name now.

Fran's son also told me that he printed out a photo of me holding baby E shortly after she was born three years ago. (Sadly, my friend Fran passed away just a few weeks before her first grand-baby was born.)  When E opens up the gifts I send her, she can look at the picture of me holding her and she really knows who sent her the presents.  I just think that's such a nice thing for Fran's son to do, and a wonderful way for little E to "get to know me" from so many miles away.  Little E laughs at the photograph of me holding her..... she was such a tiny little baby and she thinks it's so funny that she was once so very small.

Fran's granddaughter is three years old now..... when she was born, she was given Fran's name as her middle name. Fran's son eMails me pictures of his daughter every few months or so, and as that little girl has grown from a baby to a toddler, I can see expressions in her face that remind me so much of Fran.  I wish I could have made a bargain with the angels to change Fran's destiny..... she would have loved and lived for this little granddaughter of hers.

I have just one thing to say:  Don't smoke, people. And if you do smoke, then stop. You are trading away years of your life for momentary puffs of nicotine that will eventually take your breath away. Had my friend Fran known that such a beautiful little grandchild was in her future, she would have quit smoking in her 30s, rather than in her late 50s when the ravages of all those cigarettes literally did take her breath away.