paper cranes

My grandfather used to make them all the time.  Oh, how he loved them! And I’m not sure why.  Maybe making them just gave him something to do, or was a creative outlet of some sort.  There is something rather mesmerizing about the process – all those folds that need to be made just so, and the intricacies of the folding process.  It’s really fun.

And I thought he was amazing for being able to make them.  I didn’t know anyone else who could.  I also didn’t know anyone else who had parakeets, or old-fashioned printing presses (he owned a print shop, so it was at least somewhat logical – but they were so cool…).

Making paper cranes today brought up so many memories.  The time we went fishing and Grandpa was waiting til he caught a fish to eat lunch, and the seagull who flew by and um… left something on his sandwich, just as he was about to eat it.  The time he went to the beach with my Dad and my sister to feed the swans, and a swan chased him 1/2 a mile down the street to our front porch because it wanted more bread.  The way he looked in his suit on his way to church on Sundays.  And the way his eyes twinkled when he’d catch us sneaking sponge candy from the candy dishes on top of the piano, and would sneak a piece himself.

I don’t know a lot of his stories.  As a painfully shy kid, I lived mostly with my nose in a book, and I rarely thought to ask questions.  But what I do (and did) know, is that he loved me tremendously, and was always glad to see me.  He was one of the first people who modeled God’s love to me – and while I didn’t understand it or see it at the time (and I’m not even sure he would have thought of it in those terms, either) – I am so grateful for it now.

Do you know that God loves you tremendously?  Because He does.  And He is ever so glad to see you when you come to Him – no matter what this day held.