Just Like Grandma Used to Make

The warm breeze massaged every follicle of hair on my arm as it slowly nudged its way through the raggedy, old curtains wrapped around the agape window. I sat there at the breakfast nook in silence, tucking the tattered, sun-bleached tablecloth in front of my knees as it gently floated up with every inhale and exhale of the house’s mortal breaths. I flicked the cotton fibers back and forth of a small tear under the lilac-colored placemat—weathered from years worth of meals and conversations we had had in that kitchen—as if I was too reluctant now to even want to make eye contact with the giant twelve on the wall overhead.

The air seemed different now. The birds out in the garden had stopped singing their tunes, and the aroma of sugar cookies and fresh pasta and sauce that had once enthralled an entire neighborhood of young and old—dazed into waltzing sugar plum fairies at the front-door just to appease their tongues with a taste—had been overcome by the smell of budding azaleas and multicolored carnations.

I ran my hand on the stained-wood chair, sanding the smoothed edges and memorizing every notch and dimple like a book of brail before gripping the back tightly and lifting myself up to walk over by the sink to inspect a tiny object that had caught my eye below the windowsill. My grandmother had collected a lot of little nicknacks throughout her life from the different places she visited and people she encountered. Most of these nicknacks were of miniature cooking tools or hand-sculpted figurines of which I had no idea about the significance behind their acquisition, how long or why they had been sitting there, or how much they had seen and heard over a lifetime. I picked up the object I recognized and rolled it around a bit in my palm, studying the tiny words written on it by a much younger, naive version of myself.

“She kept everything,” I thought, closing my eyes. Looking back on it all, no matter how grand or insignificant, making memories and loving life and family were the most treasured values I took away from my grandmother. I wish I had realized that sooner; I wish I had gotten to spend more time with her.

It had only been a few days since she passed peacefully at home—the place I had called my second home for as long as I could remember—yet somehow, with boxes beginning to be packed up and rooms being stripped of their photographs and colored wallpaper, it seemed to be more like just an ordinary house. The love and magic aura from room to room had begun to dissipate, and soon enough a new young couple would start a family here, painting over old memories with new ones and leaving no trace of the previous owner’s stories behind.

I put the object back down behind the sink and made my way down the counter to the glass cake stand. There were always freshly baked pastries and desserts peering back like puppies in a pet store to massive smiles, eager to be devoured at the end of every visit to Grandma’s house. For the last and final time, there was a slice of chocolate cake under the glass cover, as if it was the last known artwork a master had painted, frozen in time in a museum. Stale crumbs lay scattered around the dish like the infinite stars in the galaxy. The icing had crusted over a bit, chipped away like a spackle textured ceiling. But inside, the cake was still moist and full of flavor. I savored every last bite of that chocolate cake, surely the last time I would ever eat something so delicious made by the only person who could ever make it that way in the first place. For a few minutes, things seemed normal again. Despite all that was missing in life, it felt like home again.