Grandma

My grandma went home to die today. She has been in and out of the nursing home and hospital for months now battling many ailments that seemed to pop up one right after the other. In my mind, there was never a doubt she would come home. I mean coming home as in being there to make her infamous scalloped potatoes for Easter dinner and her chocolate chip pie for dessert. Prior to one of our many holidays together, I spent an afternoon at grandma's learning how to make that dessert.

We got all the ingredients together and laid out on her old formica table. As I was pounding the graham crackers into fine crumbles, she was melting the butter and preparing the fluffy parts. Since the graham crackers didn't take long, my next job was to take big blocks of chocolate and slowly scrape tiny pieces off and into the bowl. "Grandma, isn't there an easier way to do this?"

"Nope" came the reply. "This is how it's done. You said you wanted to help, and this is how I do it, so keep making those little chocolate bits".

I kept scraping and scraping while the polka music played in the background and grandma told me stories of her childhood in the kitchen with great-grandma. Half-way through the bar of chocolate I wondered "How much of this bar do I have to cut for the dessert?"

"All of it" was the matter-of-fact response. As the person I was that day, I remember questioning why I ever wanted to go there and do that. I know I probably wouldn't have knowing how much work it was and how my hands and fingers felt afterwards. If the girl I was then knew how very important that time was, I would have cherished every moment more. I don't think I remember how to make that dessert.

With tears dropping over the edges of my eyelids, I wish I would have asked her more, listened more, begged more for the history--her history--my history.