Closer Than Before

I have noticed in the past year or so, those that have gone on before me seem closer. 

My great-grandmother who loved me fiercely for the first eleven and a half years of my life.

My mother's parents who took me places like the fair, the zoo, and restaurants in Atlanta.

My daddy's parents who let me "help" in the grocery store, whose garden I walked in and first heard about Br'er Rabbit and the gang.

My daddy. 

I don't mean to say their ghosts haunt me, or I hear them or see them. That's not so.

But their presence, who they were and are, seem to be closer to the forefront of my mind and heart.

When I cook a certain thing, say a certain thing, smell, feel, touch - they come rushing back like yesterday's freshness.

Why is that? I have always loved them and thought on them fondly after the grieving softened. 

Why are they so much more real to me now, after all these years? Instead of their memories fading, they have sharpened and come alive.

Perhaps it's because I am getting older.

Perhaps it's because my mother is now an elderly woman.

I don't know.

It's a fond comfort, something I welcome. But it does puzzle me.

I just don't know.