Of A Grandma

You used to read me stories when I was young. I would sit on your lap and snuggle against you, all warm and cuddly, you smelled like peaches and dough. We always loved your peach pies, they were better than anything we’d ever eaten, and you somehow made it look so easy.

I looked for that ‘top secret’ recipe of yours a few weeks ago, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. Lord, I’ll miss those peach pies; they were so much a part of you.

You used to sing to yourself when you were in the garden, killing the plants with too much water. You would always insist that singing to them helped them grow, but it never compensated for the amount of water you forced on them. Yet you wondered why they died. We used to joke that your thumb was black, not green.

You never failed to laugh when one of us made a joke, even though it usually wasn’t funny. I felt so special when you did that, clever, like those comedians we all loved to watch. We would sit together in your cramped little lounge-room, drinking warm milk and trying to stop it from bubbling up our noses when we laughed.

You never forgot a face, and were so good with names I was in awe of you. If ever you met one of my friends, you’d address them by their name, and would always recall who I was talking about a few weeks later, when I’d tell you the recent school gossip. My friends thought you were the coolest Grandma ever, and they all wished you were theirs. I was so proud of you then.

And now? Now I’m proud of you not just because everyone else loved you, but because I realize how much I loved you too, how much you accomplished, and the profound impact you had on my life. If it weren’t for you, I probably wouldn’t love reading. If it weren’t for you eating would just be something boring but necessary, and I wouldn’t have the confidence to joke with people I don’t know really well. If it weren’t for you my plants probably wouldn’t be dying from under-watering and I wouldn’t feel so bad about forgetting people’s names. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be me, and I like who I am, I like my shelves full of books, and even my wilting plants.

You used to read me stories when I was young. I would sit on your lap and snuggle against you, all warm and cuddly, you smelled like peaches and dough. But now I read to you, who has the mind of a child and yet the body of an elderly woman. You who no longer smell of peaches and dough, but of soap and sanitary napkins. You don’t laugh when I make a joke anymore, you don’t even remember my name…