Once there was an old woman who kept losing her parts. A knee cap, say, or a shoulder socket, or those little drummie things in your ears. And whenever a part of her got lost, she would say, “Crutches and bother, there goes another piece of me I wasn’t finished with.” Then she would have to stop what she was doing to search for a new thingama-whozit to replace whatever thingama-whozit had so thoughtlessly left its post.
Needless to say, the replacement whozit never did fit quite the same or work quite as well as the original, and eventually the old woman found herself mucking along with parts that clanked and stuttered and sometimes completely refused to make the effort at all. Still, she thought she was managing the business of life about as well as could be expected.
It happened that the old woman had six grandchildren: three perfectly perfect girls and three equally perfect boys. She liked to keep things even. They were pretty good grandchildren, and she loved them a lot. They loved her a lot too. Sometimes they brought her things – a drawing they had made or an old recipe, a tiny ornament, a blue bookmark or a blanket with penguins on it – and take away a smile or a kiss or maybe cash.
As the old woman got older and older still, her clankety whozit parts got more and more wonky and troublesome, and she was tempted to complain about the direction in which things were headed. But as her moving parts grew ever more balky, the old woman discovered an interesting thing had happened: inside, where things mattered most, memories of all the gifts her grandchildren brought her over the years were sparkling and dancing and warming the pathways that lead into the heart and out again. So the old woman thought she would not complain. She thought she was very lucky to have a heart so warmed by love, even when she stopped getting older.
Grandma Kissed A Sailor 