It was a rough time for me. The note basically said she liked who I was becoming and referenced a specific situation and how I reminded her of her mom (still the best compliment ever.) And that she loved me and was proud of me.

I didn't know my maternal grandmother that well, she died when I was in my early teens. But she graduated in math from Grinnell in the 30s, was a farmwife during the Depression and teacher, loved to swim and sail (I only learned about the swimming recently. She drove through blizzards in a tractor against my Grandpa's strenuous objections to the nearest town with a pool. I can now sympathize.) She was interested in everything, loved to talk about world politics. Grandpa used to invite in door-to-door missionaries in because she'd sweetly debate them to tears over biblical stuff, she was a very liberal lutheran (she was always annoyed, but Grandpa liked to watch her shut them down.) She was really a renaissance woman, one who never left the country.

To be compared to her? WOW.

Is mine the only family that writes on bananas???

Aw, sara. Your family is pretty awesome.

Jesse, I've never heard of that! But now I'm dying to pack a banana in (my)Sara's lunch with a note on it. Ben is not a banana fan, sadly.

I'll cuddle with pretty much anyone who will let me. It's my sluttiest trait.

Do it! You can't write much, but XOXO or whatever works.

yes!

my family does not write love notes. I should start with mac. he will hate me, except the part that won't.

Sara, she sounds fascinating.

Jesse, I have never heard of that. Completely alien behaviour to my upbringing. Of course, now I want to test it with messages to myself. Which is hella lame.

My parents told me they were proud of me a couple years ago, which would be the first time unasked. Migraine-related again. I don't like to think about how much my chronic pain takes out of them.

I may take a bullet for you, but I won't say the L-word.

After my grandfather died when we were there, I couldn't remember if I'd told him I loved him that night. It had me bailing from slumber parties for months, in tears wanting my mommy. I use it much more liberally now. I have called people back to tell them I love them after concluding a conversation. It kind of freaked me out.

God, I can't remember if Tress or Ed died first. Ed died when we were there, I saw him carried out, blue, to the ambulance. Tress died when we were visiting the paternals (actually, the only time I've seen my dad cry, over his MIL,) so think Tress was first. I think Grandpa Ed was still alive then.

I don't know why this is so damned important to me.

You could also try a Bat signal or other simple shape on the banana... just a thought. You just scrape with a corner of your nail.

I use it much more liberally now.

I'm not sure I've ever used it to anyone's face, except to respond to my parents' (recent) assertion of same. It just doesn't trip off my tongue.

I can say it about people--I have no problem with that. It's the personal declaration where everything stops still.

I'm pretty sure my sister can say it, except she probably wouldn't dare to me in case I didn't say it back. And she's sensitive that way.

Sara, she sounds fascinating.

She kinda was. And I didn't know that when she was alive, she was just my grandma. Excuse me, she graduated 1928, not the 30s. [link] Tresabel Pitcher. If I ever had a daughter, I'd name her that. Sadly, I likely won't.

I keep finding out how she was a force to be reckoned with, while not being a hurricane. She wasn't from a family who historically had gone to college. She did. She taught. She met this washed-up wrestler (he was headed towards Olympics and his knees went bad bad bad. My knees are fucked) talking of giving farming a go, who ate beans 4 weeks old re-re-re-reheated on a wood stove. First date, she went to meet him at his bachelor pad and promptly threw out the beans and told him he should be dead. And went on to marry him, have 5 daughters and a son, who went on to make their own way into the world. And really? Raised 6 feminist kids. Who thought no big deal venturing out into the big world. My mother, sophomore year, bought a Minnesota winter coat. And a train ticket to SoCal. (She never used the coat.) Another aunt went off to Ecuador with the Peace Corp. Another married a Canadian and had her first kid in Glasgow. We now cover basically the whole country, and have been to a lot of the world. Tres had a lot to do with that.