Those who inspire us

For me, it was my grandmother.  She passed away today.  

From my earliest memories of her, she was always reading or writing or sitting at the kitchen table working a crossword puzzle.  She could do them like nobody's business.  She inspired my love of words, my love of books, my love of writing, and my love of all things magical.  We'd go for long walks in the woods behind her house, and she'd point out all the hiding places of fairies, sprites and brownies; the places they liked best, the places that made the best homes and castles and playgrounds.  We inspected under mushrooms, and inside the craggy, castle-like towers of rotted tree trunks. We looked under ferns and inside Lady Slippers.  And we continued to do this well into my adulthood.

She opened my creative mind, and she fed it with wonderful stories and lots and lots of love and support.  Like the fireflies we once ran around and caught, her spirit and light brightened the dark.  Now it brightens another place.  I will miss you Mary Keaton.