Grams

My grams died a few weeks ago. She was eight years shy of the century mark. Her passing did not come as a surprise, her mind and her body had been slowly slipping in the last years of her life. Yet despite the inevitability of her death, the loss still leaves an empty, hollow feeling deep down inside.

I've been thinking a lot about my grams since her death. Although one thousand five hundred twenty eight miles separated us for most of my life, her visits remain indelibly etched in my memory.

As a little girl I loved the way my grandma looked. She was the queen of dressing like a lady. Her hair was white as far back as I can remember and it was always set in thick curls, the result of her weekly trips to the salon. She wore fancy shoes that always matched her purse and pretty little earrings that clipped on. My grams was a tiny person, even at a time when I was tiny too. As I grew into a woman I realized how mini she was- my six foot frame would envelope her when we hugged.

Grams always smelled like coffee and when we would go for a drive with my Gramps I'd sit curled in the warm spot beside her. I would listen to the way her stomach would gurgle and growl and I'd giggle at the sounds. She'd lay her manicured hand across her tummy and say with surprise, "Too much coffee!"

My grandma and grandpa spent winters in Arizona in a retirement community full of trailers and snowbirds. I would spend weekends with my grams. She would knit and I would draw and she'd usually make me baked macaroni and cheese, my guilty pleasure to this day.

I don't have many memories of my grams but those I do are precious. She was a woman who worked when few others did, was married almost twice as long as I've been alive and loved her family through and through.

She had a big heart and I will miss her very much.