New jobs, new baby, new responsibilities. Our life is becoming fuller, and more fully ours.
But as our family grows and as we start building childhoods for our little ones, we are often saying goodbye to ours.
To the things that our childhood consisted of, most importantly, the faces we grew up with. This year we lost my granny to cancer.
My mom's mom. With the soft brown eyes and sweetheart face.
She always smelled amazing, like the perfume counter at the Bon Marche, like luxury. Her scent was her little stamp on a lot of things.
She perfumed her gifts and cards, and sometimes food. (I grew used to the occasional Estee Lauder in my salad. But I knew it was just because she had tossed it with her hands, and who cares, it was granny, her cooking was legendary.)
Her passion and talent for cooking and baking is what I think I will always remember most. Such food!
Some of the best meals of my life.
Her dinners were something you wanted to dress up for, they were an occasion.
She loved beauty and the food was always a sight and the table was a spectacle. She paid so much attention to detail, she would cook, bake and plan for days leading up to a big meal. And from the flickering low light of the antique chandelier, to the things that sparkled and were placed just so at your setting. It said to me "I care about these details, and I want to share them with you, because I love you."
I really think her food was her message of love in a lot of ways. I was her granddaughter, so I know I saw her and related to her in a much different way than my mom or others did.
But this is how I want to remember her.
She said things like "It tickled me..." when something was nice.
She got her hair "did" every Thursday at the mall.
When she laughed, she leaned forward and looked around like a little girl caught with a secret.
Her tree at Christmas was covered in icicles and these amazing little mirrored disco balls.
When I was younger, we would each get our choice of candy bar (full size!) from the magical place over her refrigerator when we left after a visit. (I almost always chose Rolos.)
Her condo, though not too spacious, was decorated corner to corner, (thoughtfully) with pretty pillows, throws, artwork, and trinkets from Japan*. Once when I was little, I spent the night at her house and stepping onto the bathmat in her bathroom upstairs almost changed my life forever, it was so soft...like walking on puppies...but flatter...and without the guilt that would obviously be attached to walking on puppies. To this day I think about getting to the point in my life where I can focus on getting my feet a bathmat that soft.
Granny's life seemed small. Neither she nor my grandpa Ray drove a car, so they lived most of their life (as I knew them) at home. They didn't travel or go visiting much. She was very private, and for whatever reason she cast a very small net around her. But what was inside of it was made lovely, and ran like clockwork.
My mom takes after her in some ways.
She cooks prodigiously, loves beauty, and shares it with us in the food she makes, in the fine little details at the table, and the attentions she pays us on our visits**.
I think Granny's legacy has become a part of my moms, and in a way mine.
And that softens the blow a little, when I have to say goodbye to old standards like "Dinner at Granny's house". Because they are still being found at Dinner at mom's house, and perhaps down the road, dinner are mine.
*Where she had lived for a few years when my grandpa was in the navy.
** Treats on our pillows, water in a carafe by the bed, fluffy towels...etc.
