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A grandmother's love isn't one step removed but a grand love, a valentine in August.

I thought she was doing me a favor. All the times I would call her on the phone and ask, "Will you watch Robbie this afternoon?" or "Can the kids spend the night?" "Can you? Will you?" And she said yes — which she always did. I thought she was sacrificing her plans and her energy to watch my children.

Now I know better. Now I know that my children were her plan. They filled her heart. They made her happy.

She wasn't verbal with her emotions, my mother-in-law. Scottish born, she kept things inside. She was 7 when her father went off to war, 9 when he came home, and 10 when he died. She had him back for ten precious months and then she lost him again.

And lost something of herself, too.

She spoke the King's English with a Scottish lilt. She said "vaaahhz" and "tomaahto" She wore suits and, on Sunday mornings, gloves. But she scrubbed her own floors and washed her own windows and, in the parlance of the time, was a lady. I never saw her act up or out, or kick up her heels, or laugh so hard that she cried. I never saw her lose control in any way.

Not when her husband died. Not when she lost one leg, and then another. Not even when she lost her only daughter.

She bore her pain like a Marine. She dried her eyes. She sat up straighter. And she carried on.

She loved my children. I understood this. But I didn't how much she loved them. How could I? I was a mother, then, not a grandmother, and I believed that her love was less than mine; it had to be, diluted by even the word, grandmother, a syllable removed. Mother closer. Mother the real thing.

If she were here now I would be sitting at her kitchen table drinking tea and eating the Pepperidge Farm chocolate chip cookies she always bought for me, asking her why.

Why didn't you tell me that being a grandmother isn't love one step removed but a grand love, a huge, twinkle in your eyes, lilt in your steps love that you don't expect? A Valentine in August. A night sky full of moons.

Why didn't you tell me that you never tired of my children? That you loved when they ran to you, when they hollered, "Grandma! Grandma!” — even in church, when they begged to sleep over yet AGAIN?

That you were never just visiting me. That you were stopping by to see them, to get a hug when they were little and a "Hi, Grandma!" when they were older. That being with them was a reason for being.

And she would say, "I did tell you all these things, just not in words. I showed you. Couldn't you see?"

I see now. I look back and see how she waited at her door exclaiming over each of them, at every age, and at whatever they had with them. A flower. A paper. A suitcase. A friend.

I see how she had cookies for them, always, and Coke for Robbie, and M&Ms in a bowl.

I see matching wool coats that she bought for them in Scotland, and navy blue sweaters that took her months to knit.

I see how she always had time to sit down and listen. Time to let them rummage through her desk, her photos, her jewelry, even her clothes. "Grandma, do you have ?" "Grandma, may I borrow ?"

"A dime?"

"A dollar?"

"A scarf?"

"Your car?"

She gave them what they asked for. And she gave them what they didn't ask for — her heart.

I know this now because my grandchildren have my heart. I wait at the door and greet them with hugs and smiles. I give them M&Ms. I march with them around the house. We sing. We play records. We play pretend tea. We have picnics in a little tent. And we read Bear Snores On.

And when their parents ask, "Can you watch Lucy on Wednesday?" or "Can Adam sleep over?" I think that there is nothing in the world that I would rather do.

"Mimi" they call me. It's my favorite name.

A friend e-mailed me last week, a woman I met 39 years ago. She's a grandmother, too. "My husband and I used to travel the world," she wrote. "Now we ride up and down I-95."

She wasn't complaining. She was bragging. I-95 south takes her to one set of grandchildren and I-95 north takes her to the other.

I wait at the door. I hear a little voice. I hear two little voices.

And I know that no sound on earth will ever be dearer.

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