Just imagining it, I can feel the tension leave my shoulders. My breathing slows. To lie in the folds of my grandma’s apron was as near as I came to where all hopes nested. 

She possessed the most remarkable ability, to fall asleep at any given moment. Not narcolepsy. It was as if she stored the sleep beside the Kleenex up her sleeve, and when she needed five minutes, or twenty, she could pull it out and take the needed rest. And I truly mean it could be any time. During a telephone call. A commercial break during Days of Our Lives. Or as you struggled through your turn in a card game of which she neglected to explain to you the rules. 

During one such game, I watched her apron fall and rise. I couldn’t take it anymore. I laid down my cards and gently folded myself silently from my chair. I wormed my way back up into her lap, and rode love’s ebb and flow. When I think of it now, I was not all that graceful. Surely my climbing must have awakened her. I looked up to see if an eye opened. I think I saw just the curve of her lip. I rested comfortably in the knowledge that it was still my turn.