6 years.  I can barely get my head around the idea that you’ve been gone 6 entire years.  I never mark the anniversary of that horrible, unexpected day, but this year, I’ve found myself ruminating on the disbelief that I can still smell you in the air, and yet, how is it possible you’ve been gone so long?  After all, I still grab the phone to call you at least once per week.

Last Saturday as I cleaned out a drawer in the sewing room, I was forced to finally decide how many of your cookbooks I should keep.  1 is too few, but certainly 20 is too many.  As I flipped through the pages, your handwritten recipes fell around my knees; your distinctive handwriting that I’d know anywhere.  The handwriting that graced my care packages at college, filled with oatmeal butterscotch cookies you packed into Quaker Oatmeal cans.  I can just hear you hounding Grandpa to eat more oatmeal so you could send me cookies. He probably said, “Now Donna, why don’t you just go on down there to the bakery and ask them for a box?”  And she’d say, “Bump!  (My Grandpa has an unusual nickname, but indeed, the entire world calls him Bump.)  Do you think money grows on trees?  You know full well I went to Ross’ last year, and they wanted to charge me 75 cents for a box.  I’ve been trading at the store since we moved to this house 40 years ago, and they couldn’t give me a single box?!  Eat your oatmeal.”

I noticed many were written on flip pads from beauty salons.  Of course.  That’s where you got your chat on every single Friday.  The morning we lost you, your “Beauty Operator” was the very first person I called.  I knew it was your top priority.  I never teased you about calling Sherry your Beauty Operator, because anyone who took care of your hair had to have had the skill of a surgeon.  She permed and teased you and kept you wig free for many decades, despite your hair “challenges”.  That woman had a gift.  And on the day you were scheduled for a perm, she met you at the funeral home instead, and gave you an up-do that rivaled the Academy Awards red carpet.  I miss Sherry too.  I miss knowing your hair days, your bowling league days, your meet the gals for pie days, your tales of finding romance novels at the library, and complaining about how Ross just doesn’t carry the brands they used to.  Damn that Ross.  Your death put them right out of business.  Serves them right for not carrying your favorite brand of fat-free, sugar-free, flavor-free bread.

I know if you were here, you wouldn’t have all the answers.  I don’t kid myself that you were a brilliant saint.  You were close, but you would have said the same thing all Grandma’s say: it’s all going to turn out just fine.  Even if you couldn’t have provided wise words, there would have been pie.  And recipes for pina colada cake scribbled on tiny scraps of paper.  You would have warned me for the umpteenth time if you go first, I’d be left to handle Mom and Grandpa on my own, and BOY OH BOY WERE YOU EVER RIGHT.  I’ve got to take those 2 sad sacks out for pork tenderloins tomorrow, and convince them that you are still living THROUGH us.  They’ve got their lists all ready: the drive can’t be too far, the tenderloins must be perfect, we can only go if everyone feels well, bicker-y-bickety-bick….ai ye ye Lady.

Some days when I’m mopping (I always think of you when I mop, as  you always sat on the edge of my floors and kept me company while I worked), I throw down the rag and yell at you for leaving me.  So much work…life without you is so much harder.  I feel you RIGHT HERE, all the time…right next to me.  But it’s still…so…much…harder without you.

It’s hard believing 4 Grandmas sat in the congregation when Greg and I walked down the aisle 8.5 years ago, and harder yet believing all 4 of you eat pie in heaven together without us now.  I know it’s better.  You have a full head of black hair again (I saw it in a dream, and in that black and white pant suit with your 1950’s cat glasses?  LADY, you have never looked better!).  In the end, this day is no different than any other.  I miss you.  Save me some pie.  I’ll try to be good.

P.S. If Bump and Sally show up with full colors tomorrow, I’m going to kill them myself and send them your way.  I already know you won’t hold it against me. You spoiled them Grandma.  Forget saving me pie…you OWE me pie, now that I think about it.  Start the percolator…I’m sure I’ll be chatting to you in my head all afternoon.