Sometimes, probably seeking a reprieve from the hubbub of grandchildren under the grape arbor, Grandma would come upon me in the living room. In every instance, she would gently but pointedly tell me that she wouldn’t be around forever. Is there anything of hers that I would want when she

Eventually, something would interrupt the welcoming flow of conversation between my parents and grandparents under the grape arbor—younger children squabbling or someone needing attention. The stories were over. For now. Now it was time to slip inside unnoticed and alone. Once we had passed through the grape vines and the

The annual twenty-four-hour drive from Virginia to Minnesota in our red, fifteen-passenger van always culminated in a welcome under my grandmother’s grape arbor. All eight, nine, ten, eleven of us would pile out of the van, pass through the gate of her white picket fence suffused in tiger lilies and