My friend told me about her grandparents day experience in a voice filled with happy love that reminded me of this reading of Goodnight Moon.
She and her husband went to surprise their grandson who didn’t know they were driving into town to see him.
He was sitting with two other kids whose grandfolks couldn’t make it to school.

The three of them,

three little bears sitting on chairs

off at a table of their own, while all the other kids where nestled in against grandmas and grandpas. In a separate community.

My friends made a beeline to the island of missing grandparents. They took seats among the kids, settling in tiny chairs between them so each had a grandparent to talk to, to eat cookies with, to show their drawings to.

a cow jumping over the moon

They complimented the kids on their work, on their sweaters, scrunched down eye to eye with these little humans, grinning, asking questions, nodding encouragement. Sharing giggles as extra cookies  sneaked from big hands to little. Just like the absent grandmothers would’ve done.

Kindness borne of love. A community that has no geographic boundaries or occupancy limits. A door always open, though one has to high-knee step over the dozens of shoes abandoned  in a hurry to get to the couch or the chili or the hug.

noises everywhere

I huffed about the injustice of isolating those kids, but her tone didn’t change.

hush

she said, have an extra cookie.