That perfume your grandmother always wore. The lasagna that only your mom can make. A handkerchief just like your grandfather's. Pumpkins that remind you of sitting on the kitchen floor scooping out "the guts" in only your underwear (so your clothes didn't get goopy).
How one image or smell can instantly transport you to a different time, place or person in your mind. Today it was a table. This table. It looks like an ordinary table. In my mind, it is so much more.
I saw this image on my facebook feed today. Innocently enough, appearing from a consignment store that I "liked". Instantly, my mind is flooded with images, memories and love.
You see, my grandmother had a table like this one. My beloved grandmother. She was everything to me as a child. Even now, thoughts of her fill me with emotions, even after she has been gone so long. I still miss her so much.
We called her Tutu. It sounds silly to everyone else, but that is what we called her. Tutu is the Hawaiian nickname for grandmother. My grandmother spent the better part of her life in Hawaii. She raised her children there. It became part of who she was. So we called her Tutu. Everyone did. My friends, the neighbors, kids at school when she came to volunteer and stayed to eat lunch with me. She always wore muumuus. The shapeless dresses with big, bold flower prints. If she wore pants, she always wore some kind of Hawaiian shirt. All of my friends loved her.
But I loved her most (at least in my mind). I suppose I have the same memories of her that most people have of their grandmothers. She had red hair. She smoke. She drank whiskey sours. She let me have "real" coke. We did puzzles together. We did crafts together. We colored together. And not out of coloring books. She always said that coloring books required no imagination. So we got blank paper, and construction paper and crayons and glue. She always made Christmas cookies with us. And she spend the night on Christmas eve. I remember always wanting to sleep out in the living room with her and wait for Santa. Little did I know, she was my Santa.
As a child I got to spend the night with her often. Many times the whole weekend. It was great. We took walks and went to the mall. We got grilled cheese sandwiches at Woolworth's. I still remember her apartment had white metal cabinets in the kitchen and pink tiles in the bathroom. She had all these strange and wonderful collections. Dolls from everywhere. She had sleigh bells hanging from a bookshelf. She had little jars with black sand and lava pieces from Hawaii. She had a stone mortar and pestle that I never understood why she had it. We watched the Love Boat and Fantasy Island. The table in her spare room always had a jigsaw puzzle in progress. She was always knitting. Baby blankets. She loved to make baby blankets. I'm not sure why.
And she had this table. I think she kept yarn in it. I actually think I had this table for a while in my room as a young teen after my mother had to move her out of her apartment. I have no idea what happened to it.
When I saw this picture on my computer screen, I immediately thought of her. I loved her more than anything. She was my safe haven. She was my everything. She was the shelter in the storm when bad things out of my control were happening all around me. In my eyes she was perfect. I cannot find the words to explain how much she meant to me, still means to me. And, I miss her.
Now that I am an adult, I know she wasn't perfect, of course. She was challenging and stubborn as mule. I am sure she had conflicts with her children similar to the ones I have with mine. I am sure my mother's memories of her are much different than mine. My mother had to care for her when she got hurt, when she was a difficult patient in the hospital. My mom had to make all those difficult decisions that grown-ups have to make when caring for an elderly parent.
I only knew her through a child's eyes. She was gone before I got to my difficult teen years. Before I graduated high school. Before I got married. Before I wrapped my babies in the same blanket she knitted for me.
I know she would love them. I think of her daily, as I tuck my son into bed, with one of the last of those baby blankets she was always knitting. When I look at his red hair that had to have come from her. When he looks at her picture and calls her "Tutu Granny". I hope she would be proud of me, and I know she would be proud of them.
My memories of her also make me thankful to my own mother. For giving me "my" Tutu. For letting me have these cherished memories of her, however perfected they are in my mind. I hope that I can provide the same for my children. Time with their "Granny" that they will always remember. Times that will become memories in their mind that will come back to them in an instant when they are adults and she is gone. The fact she has loved them since before they were born. She was in the room for each of their births. The smell of lasagna, that no one can make like her. That she makes Christmas cookies with them every year, just like Tutu did with me. That they can go to her when they need shelter. I hope that my mom becomes to them what Tutu is to me.
You see, it isn't just an ordinary table...
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