The branches of the crab apple tree away gently in the breeze as I sit with my sleeping grandmother. She rests silently and I think back to my children and the peace after the storm of sitting with them while they sleep. All the battles, joys and disappointments left behind in a moment of peaceful slumber. 

Life is too hectic, too busy and the opportunities to sit and listen to the sounds of nature come less and less. But in a day away from the routine I think back to all the days my grandmother held me in silence while I slept. Saw the smiles or grimaces of passing dreams and was there with me in that moment. The time melting away as wax down a candle. 

Did she hold me a little longer because in her dreams she saw what life could have been for her son Roddy? Did she retreat to her memories after her mother passed when she was 7. When she lost a son and her husband to cancer, did she find comfort in her dreams? Life’s trials are almost over and she rests quietly I the chair beside me.

These days are drawing to a close, the flame from her candle flickers as the wick is running short. Soon she will move to the land eternal. 

In this moment I see the beauty in old age and take a time to pay a long forgotten debt.