Remembering Gram

I wrote this post last spring, and it’s been sitting in my drafts folder ever since. I’m not sure what held me back from posting it then, but reading it now makes me smile. Everything I wrote here still holds true. I take comfort in these memories.

Yesterday as I knelt in the garden to clear away the winter rubble,  I thought of you. Of your scarf tied down over the curlers in your hair as you showed me how to pull up a whole weed – roots and all – so it couldn’t grow back.

I think of you when I stand at the sink and scrub potatoes. Your fingers could so nimbly skin a whole pile of them, with a knife, no less, in the time it took me to fumble the peeler over just one lousy potato.

Sometimes just the smell of soap as I walk into my bathroom will remind me of the tiny bathroom at your house, and I’ll think about how you kept three toothbrushes at once so that you would never brush your teeth with a wet toothbrush.

When I’m driving with my windows down and the breeze through my hair – too fast, of course – I smile and remember how they called you “Leadfoot Lois.” You were brazen when you wanted to be, but mostly you were calm and level-headed and I always felt safe when I was in your presence. Okay, except for a few times when you were driving too fast.

On the weekends, when I prepare coffee in the afternoon, I smile to think of how you and Uncle Rob would have your late afternoon coffee and chat.

I often think of the joy I felt in my heart  upon seeing you for the first time when you’d come to our house to visit, or arrive at meeting on Sunday mornings. You always dressed so smartly and wore your trademark lipstick, so you didn’t “look dead.”

Sandwiches always tasted better at your house. To this day I can’t pass a loaf of marble rye without my mouth watering at the thought.

It’s been more than two years since you’ve been gone. I hope you’ll forgive me for being sentimental. I was so fortunate to have a Gram like you, and I really do miss you every day. I know there will always be a part of you in me – you have touched my life so deeply.