Coffee Talk with Grandma

My grandma in 1974 at my parents' wedding.

I've written about my grandmother before, she was a major influence in my life. I'm thankful for that. She helped make me the person I've become.  Today she would have been 98.

My grandmother baked. She cooked but the thing she really enjoyed was baking. I still wear on my body and am currently trying to shed, the numerous homemade butterscotch pies, apple cakes, chocolate cakes and cookies she made before I got home from school. She lived with us from the time I was six years old until she fell ill in the 90's. She was always there when I got off the bus and walked in the door crying about the words some mean-spirited child taunted me with that day. She would take me to the kitchen table and we would talk about it as we dunked cookies in coffee. I never drank the coffee but I so loved how that sweet cookie tasted soaked in that warm, creamy coffee. I always felt better after those talks. Little did I know that it wasn't the cookies that made me feel better. It was her. :)

Unfortunately, it took me a long time to realize that when we associate the comfort we felt as children with foods that were given to us for physical and emotional boo-boos - it wasn't the food that truly comforted, but the company that we kept.

Happy birthday, grandma. I would give just about anything to sit down at the table (my children sit on the same chairs after school that I sat) and go through all my worries. This time we could skip the sweets and head straight for the coffee. Or heck, perhaps we could get in to "the other" aka booze! LOL