Paper Hearts

One day a beloved old grandmother heard whisperings in her heart to write three words on a wrinkled piece of paper. Her arthritic fingers put all the love bestowed upon her by her grandchildren and grown children into those three words, then let the wind take the paper where it should go.

The Wind tossed and tumbled the crumbled piece of paper over the towering tree tops, and across the wide, blue ocean. Coming to rest on the sandy white shores, it sat and waited.

For weeks the paper lay resting in the crystal sand, picked at by pipers, crawled over by crabs, and even licked by a lazy lizard until at last, tired of it’s spot, it asked the Wind for help.

Wind once again lifted the paper high into the blue sky, up and over the rolling hills until it lay the paper gently onto the sidewalk of the city. All day long the paper was stepped on, kicked around and flattened by people looking at nothing but their cell phones. 

Quickly Wind picked it up again,  swiftly rescuing it from the apathy of the crowd. Floating and swirling, it came to rest beside a old woman sitting alone on the bridge. Sipping whiskey from a small airplane bottle, the woman was lost in thought, looking down at the river with faraway eyes. The paper didn’t like being ignored, and asked Wind to help, letting the breeze bump it against the old woman’s leg.

The woman’s tired, wrinkled eyes finally rested upon the paper, and her gnarled, dirty fingers plucked it up off the bridge. Unfolding it, she was just about to toss it into the water below, when she caught sight of something written on the inside. The words were worn, so she held the paper up close, squinting to read the three words: “You Are Loved”.

Tears fell on the paper, soaking it with loneliness and pain until an amazing thing happened. All of the warmth and goodness of the writer was felt by the old woman in an explosion of love, warmth, life and laughter, rocking her back with it’s force. She laughed out loud in a gravely voice, almost forgetting what her own laughter sounded like!  Standing up, her joints popping and aching, she tossed the small bottle of whiskey into the river. Putting the paper in a pocket near her heart, she made a decision. Maybe it was about time she met those grandchildren of hers.