Thank You, Grandma.

I haven't written in four and a half years.  I guess I've felt I have nothing to say.  Though, that isn't exactly true.  A lot has happened.  I moved back across the country, bought a Honda Fit, got a job at a school that I love with a department that's like a family, adopted a black cat and promptly named her Frankie, bought my very first home, fell in and out of love in two short spans of time, got T-boned and got a Mazda3, met and fell in love with a German Shepherd and named her Ferdie, and traded in my Mazda3 for a Subaru Forester (I love cars).

Those are the good things.  One major thing happened last week that is not good.  My grandmother died.

Grandma was 87 when she passed.  She caught pneumonia a few months back, went to the hospital, went to rehab, then caught the flu.  She quickly went downhill and died a few weeks after returning to the hospital.  People say it felt sudden.  It did feel sudden.  In a lot of ways, Grandma was doing great up until pneumonia.  But a friend of mine said, when you're 87, death is never sudden.  Grandma didn't deteriorate in front of our eyes for long months.  She didn't slowly wither away to nothing.  It's not the worst way to go.  But it's never easy.  Because we loved her. 

The thing I remember most about Grandma is her cooking.  She cooked in a kitchen the size of a walk-in closet.  She would cook for the whole extended family, her five kids and each of the grandkids.  She'd make picadillo with Spanish olives and fluffy white rice, roast pork every Easter, rice and gondules, black beans and pink beans.  She'd make all that and an extra batch of food for Papa, who ate a ridiculously healthy diet.  It had to be super bland for his high blood pressure.  Papa's food was the worst, but the rest of us ate really well.  My absolute favorite was her chicken cutlets and mashed potatoes.

She would never go wrong and no one can ever replicate it.  Grandma would go to the butcher and get her chicken cutlets that day.  She'd bread them and fry them in oil and they would be perfect... perfectly thin and crispy, never burned, never mushy.  Her mashed potatoes were a masterpiece.  They were always perfectly whipped, smooth and buttery.  I would eat seconds and thirds.  God, I miss those mashed potatoes.  I watched her whipping action on more than one occassion, try to do it, but it just never comes out the same.

Grandma babysat us throughout our entire childhood.  I spent many afternoons and weekends at her house.  In those times, I remember when my brother and I would fight, she would sometimes come in from the kitchen and threaten us.  We were never scared of Grandma though.  She only would ever hit us with her slipper.  My brother and I would look at each other surprised, like, "was that supposed to hurt?"  It was kind of comical and cute.  Poor grandma.

I loved to look in Grandma's cabinets after school and on weekends when we were hanging out at the house.  Her house was our second home and it was always "what's mine is yours."  She usually had one of those Danish cookie tins in her main cabinet and when we were lucky, it was filled with oreos.  I was always really disappointed when it had the Danish cookies still in it.  Mostly, it was oreos.  Grandma had another cabinet where she kept her spices and peanut butter.  Up on the top shelf, she usually had three packs of beef flavored ramen.  They weren't Top Ramen, they were Oodles of Noodles.  She would serve them to Artie and me in little green soup bowls with handles and chopsticks. 

Grandma loved to play the Lotto and every Saturday, she'd check her numbers, hoping to hit the big one.  She never did.  One day, my dad (or my uncle, I can't remember) got one of those fake scratch offs that look like a winner.  He gave it to Grandma.  She scratched one, scratched another and got excited, then scratched the third, screamed, jumped up and down, and it was one of the funniest things I can remember.  I wish I could remember what she said.  If Grandma ever won the Lotto, I know she would have shared it.  She had a very giving nature. 

Grandma was always working on a project.  She would crochet beautiful blankets for expecting mothers, shawls for us when we were children.  She belonged to a knitting club and her girlfriends would come over and they'd just sit and talk and work on their projects.  I was always impressed with how social Grandma was.  Her house was always pretty full.  Full of friends and full of family.  Spring, summer, and fall, we'd sit out front on the stoop and in folding chairs inside the chain link fence.  People would stop by and always be welcomed in for conversation, food, a soda, or a beer.  Everyone loved stopping by Grandma and Papa's house. 

Grandma had lots of friends who had kids and grandkids and she would often have a garbage bag filled with hand-me-downs for me.  I loved those...  some of those clothes were super fun.  I would pick through and try things on, planning out my outfits for the week.  I loved those hand-me-downs and I loved when she would take me to Caren's Cones and Candy.  We would beg and beg, never realizing that she was in the middle of cooking or cleaning.  She would either walk us down there and let us pick something out or she would give us $1 or 2 each and we would walk down on our own.  I loved getting the little white bag filled with those raspberry jelly candies, marshmallow twists, and jelly rings. 

I loved sleeping over Grandma's house.  She would make up the couch for me and the linen always had that clean, warm smell.  I would wake up to her thin, crispy around the edges pancakes and eggs.  For lunch, she'd make a  delicious grilled cheese sandwich.  She loved to feed her kids and grandkids.  It's what I think made her the most happy.  But ask her for a recipe and she gets kind of exasperated with you.  "Oh Laura... I don't know, honey!"  Because she didn't follow recipes.  She just cooked.  From her memory and from her heart.  You can't explain to someone how to do that.

Grandma had a hard life as a kid.  She grew up very poor in Key West.  She told me that they would take cornmeal and flatten it out in a pan with raisins and eat that over the course of a few days.  In her adult life, she had an amazing and loving husband in Papa, family that adored her, and was able to provide delicious food to her family, and a place to sit and talk over Spanish coffee and homemade flan for neighbors and friends.  I think that is what she needed.

Rest in Peace Grandma.  I love you, I appreciate all that you've given me, I learned from you, and I'll bet you're on this swing with Papa right now, happy to back with him.