I spent every weekend with you in your little rancher with the bamboo hill. 

You held me and watched me grow, 

In the same place you held and watched your three boys grow.  

It turned from weekends of just making sure I lived,  

To sharing the same interests. 

 

After sidewalk drawings and the rainbow of construction paper I drew on, 

We watched Ellen DeGeneres at 4:00 

At 5:00, we listened to 93.1;our local country station. 

Jimmy Buffet singing about what happens in Margaritaville. 

By 6:00 we're sat at the wood dinning room table with six chairs eating 

Velveeta Family Sized Macaroni and Cheese and Tyson Chicken Nuggets. 

At 7:00 we are sat on the couch that you’ve had since only God knows when, 

 Watching Maryland Public Television, 

 Celine Dion singing I Surrender. 

Staining our fingers all of the colors of the rainbow. 

I always held the M&Ms too long, you always made me laugh at the infomercials. 

You took the oversized TV remote and we heard the static of your TV, 

But then the nights became dark. 

Pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat...Whoosh. 

 

And the rain outside like 

Bricks crumbling from a building. 

I crumbled into your arms asking you to protect me. 

The thunder like 

A fifteen pound bowling ball hitting the lane. 

 

I wanted to surrender to Mother Nature but, 

You always loved the rain and the thunder. 

You said it was Grandad and Opa up there. 

They were bowling, and whenever I heard BANG outside, 

They had bowled a strike. 

Lightning 

Lightning meant they were celebrating, 

Setting off bright firecrackers that were so bright, we could see them all the way down 

Here.

 

But now you're there with them,

Bowling strikes and celebrating high above.