NOTE: One in a while you read a post on a weblog that goes beyond “blogspeak” and predictable ideological discussion. Something that is so very much from the heart that it haunts you for days. It’s more than a post; it’s someone sharing something exceedingly special with readers all over the world. And it DESERVES more attention. So we’ve now created the occasional Shining Star Post to point you to some of these amazing pieces of personal writing.
We urge all readers to visit Julien’s List here for Tribute to Ester, where Ms. Jilien in Miami talks about her on-again-off-again relationship with her beloved grandmother.
Read it all from top to bottom, but we’ll give you a very small edite taste here:
My paternal grandmother, Esther, was a very important person in my life. She was there for me from the first day I was born; she adored me. She loved all of her grandchildren, but there was always a special bond between “Julâ€? and grandma….Things really changed between my grandmother and me, however, when I graduated from I.U. in June of 1989, and left for my first full-time job on a cruise ship in July…..She and I had lost our closeness – I felt she was angry with me for leaving, and for moving to Miami. I felt like she expected me to visit her often to make up for the four years I was gone. Our special bond seemed like a memory. The strong love was there, but it was not the same.
Years later she sees her grandmother:
My grandmother slowly pushed the chair around with her feet, and the breath I had been holding since I stepped out of my car slowly escaped. Yes, she looked very ill and frail indeed, her bird-like body covered in bruises from the steroids she had to take to help her breathing. Was this tiny creature the same Grandma Pookie who had been nearly identical in build to me until she was nearly 70? She seemed not to register at first who was there…perhaps she was expecting my sister Amy, who occasionally drove down with one of her babies for a visit. I walked over to her, and spoke to her. (“Grandma, it’s Jul. JUL.�)
What happens next? Read it and find out. Start at the very top of it. And appreciate someone so eloquently sharing something special with readers all over the world.
NOTE: We created this new feature before we were able to include this post which we urge you to read. We ran it in our Around The Sphere but we want to make sure you didn’t miss it.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.