I don't see a backyard swing and not think of Grandma. All my life she lived in Southern California. During long, hot, oppressive afternoons Grandma and I would sit and rock in her swing. My head in her lap while she retold me the stories of her days in the orphanage.
Better Than a Book
Orphanages were a thing of the past, long past, if you asked eight year old me. Living as an orphan couldn't have been fun, but listening to Grandma reminisce, while we glided back and forth in the swing, made orphanage life sound romantic.
I'd read books about people in different places and eras. Yet none of them could compete with the three McNeill girls braving orphan life, due to their father's abandonment of them.
It was here, in her backyard, with my head in her soft lap, that I learned to love stories. Before I knew it my heart made me a promise that I would one day be a writer.
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