My grandmother was from a town in Michigan. Summer after summer, I enjoyed staying with my grandparents as a young child. I was from the city and loved the small town they lived in. People knew everyone, their kids, their pets, their ancestors. The bond with them continued to grow as I grew and they got older. Grandma was always using her hands for something exciting. She would make little sandwiches and we'd have tea parties. She'd make beautiful quilts for each one. I remember the small thimble  she would use while doing her needle work. A few years ago, when Grandma left this earth, I bid farewell to a loving grandmother. How quickly our lives can change. We had just had tea together a couple of months earlier, on her 91st birthday. I missed her very much. On one particular birthday, when I was feeling a little low, something happened to make me feel like she was sharing that special day with me. I was arranging some colorful pillows that she had made, and suddenly I felt something inside one pillow. It was small and hard. I moved the object to a seam  that I carefully opened, and to my delight out came a tiny silver thimble! How happy I was to find something that had been a part of her. Not realizing it had fallen off her finger, I pictured her sewing it in that little pillow that I just happened to place on my bedspread that day. I carefully laid the thimble alongside the others I've collected over the years, where I could continue to see the gift God chose to reveal to me. What a precious memory of a very special lady who somehow, I knew, was laughing in delight at sewing her thimble inside my pillow. I made some tea, using my best china, as Grandma always did, and enjoyed my tea and Grandma's thimble. What a wonderful birthday that was! The author liked staying with her grandparents because  _  .
they often bought her some gifts she was curious about people and things there she could have tea parties and eat sandwiches she could learn to sew quilts