Dearest Nannah, Will You Be My Valentine? From Your Grand-Daughter [#ThisThingCalledLove]

Does Valentine’s Day always have to be about romantic love? A beautiful letter from a grown-up grand-daughter to her 85 year old grandmother.

My dearest Nannah,

Hope you are doing well.

This letter may just be a piece of paper with a few scribbled words to others but it would remind you of my love and gratitude every time you decide to take a plunge into the ocean of my heartfelt emotions through this.

Nannah, you are eighty-five and I am thirty. You are an old lady now but I still feel so much myself in your company. Everything that you talk about — your poems, your stories, your dreams, they always have inspired me. You are the one who inspired me to write. You taught me the importance of expressing our emotions. If there’s none who would listen to us, we can still share it with a pen and a piece of paper. You taught me never to stop loving life. Your positivity, your strong will, your love for life shall be your legacy to me.

I know you may have grown old and feeble, your skin wrinkled and fragile, but this gradual process of wear and tear cannot stop your forever young heart, can it? When you look at yourself in the mirror, you may not find the lady at the other side quite impressive. She isn’t the one similar to your yesteryear. No wonder why you hardly take a look at her. Her weak slender body, her head full of white hair, her drooping gait, her face not so pretty now, might have bothered you for the past two, three decades.

But let me assure you, everyone in the family loves this lady. She is the most beautiful one amongst us all. She is the reason why we exist. We all owe her a lot. The senior members of the family may have forgotten to tell her this in their growing up years or even now, for being preoccupied with the mundane duties of everyday but they too know this in their hearts, somewhere. They will tell you this, someday, I know for sure.

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Naanu loved you totally. I remember this one time when I had a conversation with him about you. He told me how you two met. He was totally struck by your beauty. He told me that he wasn’t able to take his eyes off this young thing who had a slender waist, long tresses and mesmerizingly beautiful eyes. I would have loved to know more but I hadn’t met him since then, and then a year afterward, he left us forever. He always wanted you to know how much he loved you.

You have been a strong woman always. You have proved this time and again. You have taken care of my uncle’s family after uncle died five years ago. His death had shattered us all. The children were so young. Aunt was so lonely. But you have stood there like a pillar taking care of them and assuring them at every step that there is someone for them. That they need not worry.

But now when things are all okay and everything’s settled, you too sometimes struggle for love but are deprived of it. People nowadays don’t have the time to express love to someone who had always loved them and lived for them. That’s why I have written to you so that you can read this whenever you feel low, left out and abandoned. Because I know that when you do feel sad, you won’t call me because it worries me. You would just go to your bed and silently weep to sleep.

This letter of mine will then take care of you, remind you how much I love you and care for you always. And yes, would you be my valentine and make me happy? Waiting for your reply.

You are my hero.
Love and hugs,
xoxo

Image source: grandmother and granddaughter by Shutterstock.

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