My Grandma

Just yesterday, I was talking to my daughter about my grandmother and sharing some of my memories with her. Imagine my surprise when hellogiggles.com brought up this very topic just today. So I decided to write about her in my blog :)
My grandmother wasn't a huge baker so her house didn't smell like cookies, but it always smelled like grandma's house. Let me explain.
My grandma developed Rheumatoid Arthritis when she was 35 so by the time I had any real memories of her she had tiny, gnarled almost boneless little fingers. Her legs had huge scars from sores all over them and she could not walk without crutches and after a while not at all. Her left foot was soon twisted at nearly a 90 degree angle. Her house was carpetless and she had a wheeled office chair she would sit in at the kitchen table or push herself around the house in. There was a lazy susan on the table with coffee, tea, cream, sugar, Vick's VapoRub and anything else she may need. Now keep in mind this was a while ago so she still had a rotary dial phone mounted on the wall above the table. It was too high for her to reach so she had put a metal hangar on the hook then stretched out the hanger and hung the receiver on the hanger. Later, she would get a wireless phone but my earliest memories were of that rotary phone and that hanger.
My grandma let me cook, I think I made my first scrambled eggs at 5 yrs old. I remember barely being able to see over the top of the stove, with grandma sitting in her chair next to me giving me encouragement.
My grandpa was a gruff, disagreeable old man who was very set in his ways. Not that he didn't love us but he was old-school and was more into tough love and helping to teach responsibility and how to live in the real world. Anyway, this same man remade the downstairs bathroom to create a huge walk-in shower (or really wheel-in) so that it was easier to assist her in her shower.
Even with all the pain my grandmother must always have been in, she never lost her temper, never complained, never bemoaned her fate and yelled 'why me?' She played the hand she was dealt with calm, composure and humor.
So for me grandma's house always smelled like grandma. Love, compassion and Vick's.
Sometimes I can still hear the slap of cards as she played yet another round of one of the dozens of different solitaire games that she knew or the scratch of her pen as she filled out yet another one of her many crossword puzzles.
It's been nearly 16 years since her death and I still miss her now as much as I did then. And I can't help crying just a little bit for myself for all the years that I have been without my grandma.