Sometimes when I wake in the middle of the night, when the house is still, I can almost hear the creak of her rocking chair on the front porch.

She spent hours out there in the chair grandfather made for her – rocking back and forth, her hair a little bobble of blue and gray and silver, humming some soft tune to a song that nobody knows anymore.

She liked to wear sweaters, and her glasses were always falling off her nose. Her eyes were remarkable – the deepest blue, and still young.

I like to think I have her eyes.

She taught me how to knit on the front porch. Taught me how tricky boys can be sometimes, how to play hopscotch, how to braid my hair – all to the sweet backround creaking of the wooden slats of her chair against the wooden boards of the porch.

Sometimes, when I wake in the middle of the night, after everyone has gone to sleep, I slip out the front door and I sit in her chair. And I imagine that, in heaven somewhere, she is doing the same.

Just rocking on the front porch.