My Grandmother

  My Grandmother. What a wonderful, patient, kind, loving, and sad woman she was. My Grandfather had been killed many decades earlier leaving her with four children, possibly very little money, and probably a broken heart. She must have loved him because she never spoke of him or the accident that killed him.

  To me she seemed to carry a burden of some sort throughout her life. She would complain about life in general, but I always felt there was something weighing on her mind that she would not, or could not, talk about. She went about life always worrying and caring about how her family was doing. If you needed help she was always there for you, no matter what. She could be the shoulder you needed to cry on, the one to pass along wise advice, or just someone to listen to you. Her family knew that she loved them. No matter how bad things got, grandma loved you!

  My fondest memories of her are of her in the kitchen baking. She made baking a personal perfromance. Every cookie, bread, or cake she baked was an artful creation made with a touch of love. She would make the whole house smell so delicious it made you curious if other people were as lucky as we were.. Her cakes never fell, no batch of cookies was below standard. Everytime she baked you knew the end product was going to be as good, if not better, than the time before. To my Grandmother it was a labor of love.

  Now that she is gone and all I have are memories and recipes. Also in the family are cookie cutters and other baking utensils. Worthless to eveyone else, but to her family they are priceless. We continue on her baking heritage, perfoming the direction specified in one of her recipes. Recipes that we will pass along to next generation. To this very day I can not eat a chocolate chip cookie without thinking of her. We can use her utensils and recipes, but none of us can ever bake or create as she did, with that touch of love only she could do. When I bake my mind is confronted with dozens of memories of her. She wasn't just a grandmother, but a teacher as well.  I remember  her precise instructions and of her scolding me if I didn't do as she instructed. I know that as I bake one of her recipes her spirit is there with me and it is the only time I feel she is close by. I miss her so.