Fireflies

People whose grandma’s were great cooks, how does it feel to be God's favorite?

I can tell you it feels pretty great because my grandma was the best chef I’ve ever known. She passed away four years ago this August and I inherited exactly four things from her. Three crystal champagne flutes, a bag of old silk scarves, her scrabble board game and her recipe box.

I have yet to make any of her recipes, I just open the little metal box and inhale the scent of her, her house, my memories. I’m instantly transported back in time, sitting on her kitchen barstool, watching her as she stands over a pot of something boiling, stirring contentedly in her yellow apron. One time she was carving a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. Her house smelled delicious that day, sweet and savory scents with notes of love sprinkled on top. I watched her expert hands as they yielded piece after piece of succulent breast. She reached out her hand and offered me what she called “the best piece of meat” from the whole bird. Being young and still having finicky taste buds I turned it down. I still remember the pang of disappointment and hurt that flashed across her face. How I wish now for that bite of turkey.

She made all the southern bests. Fried chicken, shrimp etouffee, lemon ice box pie, one day she even rented a dry ice machine and we made home made ice cream. I don’t remember it tasting that good, but I remember the smoke from the machine and her saying if we touched it we would burn our hand off. But of all the dishes and meals she spoiled us with my favorite was the most simple of all. Tomatoes, picked right from her garden.

On a sticky Louisiana sunset she would call us out to her back yard, where she would be sitting on her wooden crate, a tattered blanket on the ground holding her harvest: ripe, red tomatoes, plump to the touch. She would pull a knife from her apron pocket, cut a slice of tomato in her hand and from her other pocket a saltshaker, which she used to sprinkle the tiniest amount on to the dripping wet fruit. It’s hard to believe that a tomato could be your favorite food, or even one of the best foods of summer, but a single bite of hers was heaven. Something so fresh and so flavorful, somehow still cool in your mouth despite the 101 degree weather, it was like a magic fruit. She would pull me onto her lap and we would share a tomato as we watched the fireflies dance around the garden and the sun slowly fall asleep behind the treeline.

My grandma was formidable. In her cooking and in her life. She was too smart for sixth grade so they advanced her to seventh so that she didn’t get too bored in school. She worked as a secretary after highschool and her boss offered to pay for her to go to law school if she agreed to stay on with him. This was back in 1950 before women were really considered valuable in the office, that's how smart she was. She raised 4 kids and 9 grand kids and cooked thousands of homemade meals for them all, each one from scratch. When her mind began to leave her and we put her in a home she just stopped eating. She decided she was done and she refused meals and water until it killed her. Seeing her that way was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. She could barely speak but she gripped my hand so tightly and looked at me with such tenderness in her eyes, I could feel her love for me pulsating from her body.

I don’t let myself think about her too often because it still hurts so much but a few nights ago I was feeling down. I was up late by myself and I was writing as writers do. I had had a few glasses of wine and I was feeling emotional trying to access these old memories of a long lost childhood. Sometimes it's sad to remember who you used to be. All those hopes and dreams of a wild, untamed life, turn into three kids and a mortgage and before you know it you're someone you never expected to be. I pondered these thoughts to my laptop as silent tears rolled down my cheeks. I missed my grandma terribly. I prayed to her, are you still here? Are you watching over me? Do you know that I miss you, that I still need you? Am I doing an ok job? My heart pleaded for a sign as my fingers dragged across the keyboard.

“Are you still here?” I typed. I stared hopelessly at the screen through my tears, half wishing to see the word “Yes” typed by some miracle, half cursing myself for being so silly. I laid back and stared out the window into my backyard and then something caught my eye. Something crawling up the drape.

A tiny blue light flashed from the insect as it crawled higher. A little blue beep, beep, beep. Like a sonar signal saying “Yes, I’m here. I’m with you! It’s ok and you're ok.” It felt so right and I wanted it to be my grandma so badly, communicating to me from beyond the grave, but my practical side shouted it’s a coincidence. Don’t be silly. As the firefly found a spot it was happy in, it stopped crawling and the flashing ceased.

I said in my mind if that was you grandma, flash one more time.

And a single blue light emitted more hope and joy than you could even imagine. My tears of sadness turned to tears of joy as I was wrapped once again in those feelings of love and safety.

The next day I pulled down her recipe box and took a long deep breath in. I was determined to honor my grandma with a homemade meal as spectacular as the ones she used to make. I sifted through the different index cards, post-it notes and newspaper clippings in search of the perfect homage. Then I closed it up, grabbed a tomato, knife and a salt shaker and called my 4 year old to the back yard to watch the sunset with me instead.